Pulse of my Heart
by LollypopGuild
Summary: 30 days and 30 nights... That's all it takes to make her fall in love with him. He lies to himself that it's all for the case, but everything seems to be falling apart. He's feeling, he's using, and he's losing the battle to stay detached and mercenary. Then he realises he's chosen a woman who's too much like himself to just walk away from. SHERLINE - ADULT THEMES
1. Prelude I

**WARNING : Sex, harsh swearing, detailed drug abuse, bodily horror, adult themes, upsetting scenes and disturbing material. Please use your common sense. Do not read this story if you are under 18. Do not read this if you think it will trigger you in any way.**

**I own nothing but an action figure of Jack Harkness, suspiciously distressed in the paintwork.**

***No-one's reputation was harmed during the making of this fic.**

* * *

**_PULSE OF MY HEART_**

_The undisclosed story of Sherlock and Janine._

* * *

_Chuisle mo chroí- ('kʊʃlə mə'kri) : n. Literally 'pulse of my heart'._

_An Irish gaelic term of endearment, often shortened to A'kushla._

* * *

**_PRÉLUDE I_**

* * *

_Friday 2nd November 2012_

* * *

Charles Magnussen left the Imperial Club at eight and emerged into the crisp, cluttered night of Whitehall, where his driver stood holding the door of the Mercedes.

People flocked the street like drones, attracted by the jaundiced glow of the sodium lamps. Aromas of leather, burning beech-wood and single malt still clung to his suit, but it was the lingering taste of _Clair de la Lune_ he savoured the most. He filed the sensation away for future reference. It was no longer the bitter tang of an expensive perfume; it was now the taste of victory, of total political domination.

He would have her eating out of his hand.

He laughed to himself as he slid into the back seat and rearranged his jacket; a short, sharp, humourless sound. _Elizabeth_, he mouthed, enjoying the way his mouth caressed the consonants, salivating at the thought of violating her. It had been a long time since she'd turned down his romantic advances; they had been at Oxford together, although in different years, but he'd never forgotten the haughty way she'd rejected him, the sting of the slap. He was unused to being denied, even then, but he knew he'd conquer her when the time was ripe, when it was to his advantage. He always knew that one day he would _own_ her.

My, but she was beautiful back then, the kind of fine bone-structure and English rose hide that was reserved for the very finest upper-class livestock. Age and stress had done little to detract from her poise and grace. In fact, it had improved her. She was like a fine whiskey; complex, with a brittle strength that he knew he would enjoy shattering. The strong ones, or those who _thought_ they were strong, were the most fun. What point was there in breaking someone who was quick to grovel? There was no sport in it.

"Where to, Mr Magnussen?" Michael's bright voice broke through his reverie.

"Wait a minute," he said in a low purr, "I want to see where she goes."

"Very well, sir."

They waited, watching through smoked glass, as Lady Elizabeth Smallwood quit the club and her car pulled away.

"Stay at least three cars behind." Magnussen leaned on the arm rest, dialling his mobile with his free hand.

Twenty-five minutes later, Lady Smallwood's car stopped outside an inconspicuous Georgian town-house in Marylebone. Magnussen instructed Michael to pass slowly enough for him to check the number on the door.

"Where are we, Michael?"

The driver checked his sat-nav. "Baker Street, I believe."

"Interesting."

"Indeed, sir."

* * *

_Monday 5th November 2012_

* * *

_"Janine," _a voice floated through the intercom,_ "would you be so kind as to bring in the coffee for our guest?"_

She leaned over her desk the wrong way and depressed a button on the phone. "No problem."

As she righted herself Kayleigh came into the reception, a stack of white envelopes tucked under her arm. Janine caught her eye.

"Uh-uh," the younger woman shook her head, "he wants you."

"Oh, come on. It's your turn. I'm up to my neck."

"Last time he stroked my hair when I put the tray down on the table. He wouldn't dare do that to you."

"He's got someone with him, that private investigator, what's-his-physog."

"Then you won't mind going in there and checking him out, will you." Kayleigh stood her ground.

"He did look rather yummy on the way through. How much do private investigators earn?"

"See what I mean. You're incorrigible."

"Just this once. Otherwise you'll forget who's in charge around here."

Janine made the coffee to Magnussen's exact specifications—she never could trust anyone else to do it properly anyway—put some of those pastries from _Paul _on a plate and checked her hair and make-up before she went in.

Even after all this time Magnussen was still buzzing her for coffee like she was an eager to please intern. As his wealth and notoriety had increased it had only gotten harder. People didn't realise that behind every great CEO there was a PA busting their ass. They thought a personal assistant was just a glorified receptionist; they didn't know how demanding it was being a professional organiser, involved in every little aspect of someone else's life and having nothing left for yourself. It was like being the manager of a stroppy rock star. But she would have her day; all this would pay off eventually.

She pushed the door to Magnussen's airy, modern office with her behind, so as not to spill anything.

On closer inspection, the PI _was_ rather dishy, with messy, dark blonde hair and a couple of day's-worth of stubble. It was important, the chin; you didn't want anything too masculine and chiselled, but you didn't want anything too squishy and receding either. As it happened, this one was just right; it was a kind face, rather than a classically handsome face which, she reasoned, probably helped him blend into a crowd. A well-fingered cord around his neck looked like it had once held a pendant of some sort, but he hadn't bothered to remove it after the pendant's demise.

She put the tray down on the glass coffee table and issued the PI with a devastating smile. She might have flashed him a little bit of cleavage too. He smiled back and tugged unconsciously at the knees of his jeans to make his sitting position more comfortable.

"Janine, have you met Mr North?" said Magnussen.

"Alexander," he extended a hand, beginning to rise. He must have been six foot-three.

"Please, don't get up," she said.

"But my, uh, friends call me Sandy."

"Are we?" she said too quickly, looking at Magnussen, "friends, I mean."

A subtle exchange passed between the three people; her own flirting, asserting her sexual power and availability; Magnussen's quiet management of the dynamic, the brewing storm; and Sandy's affable, approachable persona, all part of the facade he wanted to project. She wasn't naïve; she knew this was a game. It was always a game.

"Look at that. You've put three cups by mistake," Magnussen called her bluff, "sit down, you must join us for coffee."

"I'm kinda snowed under right now."

"I insist." His expression was hollow, serpentine.

"Well, I suppose the budget can wait." Her smile was as false as his own.

"Shall I pour?" Magnussen reached out to plunge the cafetiere.

_Weird._

"Sure." Janine didn't know what else to say. She was forced to take the seat next to Magnussen because Sandy was spreading himself out, and it would've been impossible to take up residence on that sofa without either moving him or getting a bit too close. She liked the way he sat with his legs apart, and here she could watch him without being too obvious.

Magnussen poured coffee into the cup nearest to Janine, but instead of letting her have it, he pulled it toward himself along the length of the table and made a show of stirring it and adding sugar and cream. Then he sat back with the cup and saucer and looked amused.

Janine realised what he was doing. She pressed her lips tightly together. Sandy caught her eye almost imperceptibly, confused by Magnussen's behaviour.

It was the warning sign that things were only going to get more uncomfortable. She had seen enough of these pantomimes to know he was just playing his own pathetic game that no one else understood, but Magnussen apparently believed it set the visitor on the back foot and gave him an advantage. They would talk business for half an hour or so and then Magnussen would pull some complete non-sequitur out of the hat.

She poured out the coffee for Sandy and herself. "Has Charles showed you his collection of antique handcuffs, thumb cuffs and nippers?" Her eyes darted toward a glass display case on the other side of the room. A weak autumn sun streamed in through the high glass walls.

"Not yet," Sandy smiled, "God knows, I'm familiar with handcuffs, but what's a nipper and a thumb cuff?"

Janine didn't even look up from the coffee tray as she explained, stirring sugar cubes into her drink like it was the most natural and mundane thing in the world. "A nipper is a handcuff for one hand, kinda like a pincer, but it has a handle for keeping the cuffed person under control. I would've thought a thumb cuff is pretty self-explanatory. It locks your thumbs together. It has the advantage of being the most painful and inconvenient way of securing a prisoner."

Magnussen beamed proudly. "That's my girl."

"I hope you haven't got one of those things that cuts your thumbs off," Sandy chuckled.

Magnussen looked at him, utterly serious. "Oh, yes I do have one of those. Not here, but at my house."

"Right," said Sandy, rather dubiously, then added, "have you ever tested it on anyone?"

"I snapped it onto Janine once, when she was typing, but she wasn't amused."

Then 'it' happened. It had been brewing since the conversation began and Magnussen's actions were so licentious, so unbelievably vulgar, that it would be considered obscene to the outside world. But they weren't in the outside world; they were in Magnussen's kingdom. He reached out and placed his icky, moist hand on Janine's knee.

Her heart thudded in shame, but she managed to keep her reaction under control. She could see confusion and indignation flicker across Sandy's face. She shifted and uncrossed her legs to try and shake him off. But there it stayed; his sweaty paw creeping even further up her thigh.

This was unusually shitty, even for him. He would normally keep his creepy tendencies under control when real people were around, but there must be something different about Sandy. Maybe Magnussen sensed the attraction between them and wanted to assert his control over her, claiming her for himself.

"Don't be alarmed; I would never hurt her. She is rather special, my Janine," Magnussen explained in his slow monotone, "she's my right hand. Without her I could do nothing. In fact, I often wonder how I managed before I found her. What would I do without her sparkling wit and her…" he breathed her in and his eyes danced over her as one might appraise a paramour, "extraordinary efficiency?"

Janine pretended to be pleased. The skin of her thigh still burned with the unwelcome pressure of his touch and her stomach threatened to rebel and bring up her breakfast.

Sandy was clearly unsettled.

"Let us get down to business, then," said Magnussen, patting her thigh, then removing his hand like nothing had been out of the ordinary.

Janine smoothed out her hem, very carefully controlling her breathing so as not to give away the relief that replaced the sensation of his groping.

Sandy recovered, blinking away his shock and picked up a dossier from the coffee table.

"What," Janine faltered, picking up her cup and saucer, and it rattled conspicuously in her trembling hand, "exactly do you need me for?"

"You're going to be the uh, shill." Sandy obviously had no idea that this was all news to her.

"The what?"

"The shill," said Sandy, "the stooge, the plant - "

"Show her the photographs," said Magnussen.

Sandy opened the Manila folder and pulled out an A4 photograph of a woman with long blonde hair, about forty, minimal make-up, attractive in a boring, suburban kind of way. The picture had been taken outside a primary school gate at home time and the woman's hands were tucked into her Aran knitwear. Under the cardigan were blue medical scrubs. She was turned slightly toward the camera but clearly didn't know she was being snapped. Janine was grateful to have something else to focus on, other than what had just happened.

"Her name is Naomi Harrington," said Sandy.

"And what has this got to do with me?" Janine glared at her boss, still slightly shaken.

"She's stolen something from me. Something I value highly, something quite, quite priceless. You are going to get close to her and help me get it back." Magnussen's eyes bored through her, emotionless.

He'd gone too far this time. She would have to be careful not to show any vulnerability right now, show anything that could be exploited. Magnussen would expect her full cooperation, as if he owned her, and she would just have to do whatever he said. The threat of what he'd do if she didn't play along was always implicit.

"What did she steal?" she asked, but Magnussen just sat back in his seat and sipped the coffee from the dainty cup, ignoring her until she acquiesced to his demands. Eventually she said, "why don't you go to the police?"

"I'd rather not involve the authorities. It's rather… sensitive. I fear that if you knew what the item was, or even its value, it would bias you and it would become obvious to her what you're trying to do. Supposing you are unable to make this work, it would be better for you if you never knew what it was, but you will know what it is when you see it."

"How am I going to get this thing back if I don't even know what it is?"

"Mr North knows what it is, but his attempts at retrieval have been so far unsuccessful. She is devoted to her partner and has rejected Mr North's attempts to get into her life. Unfortunately she now knows his face and is suspicious. For the time being, you are just going to try to be friends with her. Now, that's not so difficult, is it?"

"You just want me to make friends? That's all?" Maybe she could do this just to get Magnussen off her back.

Sandy put the photographs back in the folder. "She's booked into a cookery class at Atsuko's in Shoreditch on the tenth of October. I'll get you on the roster for that evening and you can make your approach. We'll meet before hand so I can teach you a few tricks to help you infiltrate, make sure you know how to defend yourself, if things go tits up."

"I know how to defend myself."

"I'm sure you do."

Magnussen picked up a pointed knife and began to saw one of the pastries in half. "We have the most wonderful pastries in Denmark, Mr North. They are loaded with _kvark,_ and when you cut into them, you can see it running all the way through like the rings on a tree. When I was a child I used to wonder how they got it all in there. Until I learned that it is folded in from the beginning and the baker always has complete control over how the product will turn out."

Janine automatically fished an antibacterial wipe out of the packet.

Cream cheese began to ooze out of the cut side of the pastry. Magnussen took the wipe. "Janine, can you think of something else that shows its true nature when you cut into it?"

"If that's all, I have a lot to be getting on with." She rose from her seat and tugged down her skirt. She just had to keep it together for a few more seconds."It was lovely to meet you, Mr North - "

"Sandy."

"Sandy. Oh, and Charles, don't forget you have a meeting with the deputy editor of LWT at one and we're flying out to Dubai at four fifteen."

"That reminds me. I would like you to buy a new dress when we arrive. At my expense, of course. The sheik is rather fond of purple. I hope you will keep that in mind."

"Yes, of course." She picked up the coffee tray. "I'll speak to you later, when I've finished the budget."

"And please be sure to keep me updated on how your new girl is getting on."

* * *

Janine dumped the tray down near the sink. The coffee paraphernalia jumped but did not break. She leaned on the counter.

"What's the matter?" Kayleigh shuffled closer, as one would approach a dangerous animal.

"Charles just completely and utterly humiliated me in front of that guy."

"You're shaking."

Janine looked at her bare arms. She was shaking, more with anger than anything else. "If he ever touches you again, you come and tell me, do you understand?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Cut his bollocks off."


	2. Prelude II

**_PRÉLUDE II_**

* * *

_Wednesday 10th November 2012_

* * *

"Nice to see you again, Janine," Sandy said, as she got in the passenger side of his 1963 Ford Consul Classic, "how was Dubai?"

"You remembered." She checked him out. _Yep, still hot._

"It's my job to know stuff like that."

"Right," she said, "well, I was dressed up like a bloody aubergine and it was hot and boring and full of Charles' rich, be-yachted friends. If you could call them friends. All they have in common is standing around drinking champagne, talking about golf and congratulating each other on having a yacht. And a penis. You can't just ride around in a car with someone you're not married to out there, so I have to pretend to be his wife in public. It's pretty shitty as things go."

"I hope he didn't try anything on."

She looked at him, the whites of her eyes glistening in the dark. "It's not like that. What you saw; it's just part of his sick game."

"It's just," he started uncomfortably, "I wasn't quite sure what it was."

"It's complicated." She changed the subject. "What's with the car? I though you gum-shoes were supposed to be inconspicuous."

"My dad left her to me and it's kind of become my trademark. She wouldn't have any fun stuck in the lock-up, so I bring her on stake-outs." He patted the dash.

"Guy's in love with his car. Has she got a name?"

"Bettina. The registration's BET1A."

"Jaysus - "

"You think I'm weird."

"No, it's just," she laughed, "you're nothing like I thought you would be."

"What did you think I'd be like?"

"I don't know. Sophisticated somehow."

"Oh, thanks."

"I was sure you'd tell me off for thinking you did all the obvious clichés."

"Well, it's not exactly the glamorous lifestyle people imagine. There's a lot of hunting down debtors, insurance scams and waiting around in the cold doing nothing for not enough money. That's why I agreed to take this case; your boss is paying me a huge retainer just to be on standby for any little bit of information he wants."

"So, do you know what this thing is?"

"Look," he exhaled in consideration, "I'm not supposed to tell anyone, but you're going to find them sooner or later. It's a set of pearls. A set of six huge pearls. A lot like the one in your ring."

She looked at her hand. "Charles gave me this."

"Do you know anything about pearls?"

"I went to an exhibition at the V&amp;A."

"Then you'll know the large, flawless ones are extremely valuable. Even more than diamonds of the same size, in some cases."

They sat in silence for a moment, steaming up the windows with their breath. Banter was fun, but she would still have to be careful; Sandy had been employed by Magnussen to catch this thief, but if she knew her boss, he would have factored in a way to manipulate everyone involved, including her. She had to assume Sandy already knew everything incriminating about her. It made the whole thing rather thrilling and dangerous, like a bond movie. If she was clever, if she played along, she might be able to dig up something she could burn Magnussen with too.

"Anyway," Sandy broke the tension by starting up Bettina, "we can't sit around chatting all evening; you have a cookery class to attend. I didn't have time to schedule in a training session on the techniques I want you to use, but I'll fill you in on the way."

* * *

The demonstration turned out to be quite interesting. A middle-aged woman talked at length about miso and how it was the cornerstone of Japanese cuisine, demonstrating the different tastes and uses. Janine tried to watch Naomi in her peripheral vision, just as Sandy had instructed her. She made a mental note of where the woman put her handbag, what kind of phone she had and whether she left it unattended at any point. She listened carefully to which of the demonstrator's comments made Naomi laugh and laughed at the same things.

It was quite a mixed bunch. A banker's wife, a para-legal, a computer game engineer, a nurse, a couple in their fifties who'd honeymooned in Kyoto and wanted to rekindle their youth. Naomi Harrington.

Halfway through the lesson, her hands up to the elbows in a plastic bag of soya beans, she looked over at Naomi hoping for a response, a hint of recognition, anything. But there was nothing, not even a flicker. The nurse caught her looking at Naomi and Janine realised that her gaze might have been misconstrued as something more than a casual interest. The nurse, what's-her-name, gave her a funny little smile, her hands in her own mixture. Janine turned away, hoping she hadn't blown her cover.

She did exactly what Sandy told her to, but as the evening drew to a close, and she washed the soy gloop off her hands, she realised she hadn't even made a chink in Naomi's armour.

Emerging back onto the street, she stopped to put on gloves and wrap her scarf up to her mouth against the cold fog. Naomi came out after her and walked away without looking back. Janine watched her go.

"She's got a great bum," came a voice to her right.

Janine looked up in surprise. It was the nurse. _What was her name?_ "I'm sorry?"

"The surgeon. She's gorgeous. That's why you've been staring at her all night, right?"

The nurse was a little bit shorter than her, not much, and had short bleach-blonde hair. She was rather beautiful, now that Janine looked properly and wasn't distracted by something else. She had an elegant, timeless quality that belied her sensible shoes and practical clothes, and she had a poppy in her left coat lapel.

"Oh, I'm not - " Janine said, recovering, _better think fast_, "I wasn't looking at her like that. No, um, she has something that belongs to my boyfriend."

"Ah, the old stalking the boyfriend's ex to get his stuff back trick. I've seen it many times." The nurse smiled warmly.

"Yeah, something like that."

"What did you think?"

"Huh?" Janine's breath turned to fog in the cold night.

"The course. What did you think of the course?"

"Great." She stuck her hands in the pockets of her white wool Alexander McQueen.

"So I'll see you next week, then?"

"Yeah, I suppose so." Janine stopped. "How did you know she was a surgeon? She never mentioned it to anyone."

"That's typical. You spent the whole evening staring at her, but you never noticed her hands."

"What about her hands?"

"Well, it's the stuff they scrub in with, see. It's very drying. And then there's the way she moves."

Janine was impressed. She stuck out her hand, "I'm Janine."

"Mary Morstan." They shook. "And I, uh, think your boyfriend is trying to get your attention."

Janine looked across the street to where Sandy was waiting in Bettina. "So he is. Catcha later."

* * *

"Who was that?"

"Dunno." Janine slammed the car door. "Well, that was a complete waste of time. She's totally shut down, didn't even make eye contact."

"Did you follow my instructions?"

"Yes."

"To the letter?"

"YES."

The windows began to steam up.

"Looks like you're not as charismatic as I thought," said Sandy, but when she shot him a _you're-not-that-funny_ look, he abandoned that line of conversation. "Don't worry, all is not lost. It just looks like the two of us are in this for the long haul, that's all."

"Who's going to tell Charles?"

"I'll keep him updated. What do you want to do now? I could drive you home, or - "

"Actually, I'm starving. You only get a nibble at that thing." She paused and he laughed. She looked down at his strong, tanned hand on the gear-stick._ Don't, _she told herself_, just don't do it. The last thing you need right now is to indulge your addiction. _"D'ya wanna get a kebab, or something?"

_Damn._

"Yeah, why not?"

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Sandy fell heavily onto the sofa. Janine hadn't bothered to flick the lights on, but she always left a table lamp on a timer when she was out. Her coat, bag and shoes were already lying in a heap by the door.

No, she wasn't sure if she should make everything worse by having meaningless, casual sex with someone she'd just met. She'd tried. She'd really tried to keep her impulses under control, but when she was under a lot of stress her good resolutions went out of the window. She wrestled with her conscience for a full three seconds. O_h, what the hell._

Her therapist would not be pleased.

She shimmied off her knickers and started to roll her stockings down.

"No," his eyes danced over her in hope of fulfilling a deep seated hunger, "leave them on."

She whipped the dress off over her head. She could tell that he caught a glimpse of her box, because his eyes changed, and the black stockings brushed against his thighs as she climbed onto his lap.

He tried to kiss her then, but she turned her head away at the last second. Kissing was for people who loved each other. Instead, his lips landed on her neck and he bit into it and sucked a little. "Mmm, you taste of shwarma."

"Protection," she said.

"Just a minute." He came up for air and tried to extract his wallet from his jeans pocket, but couldn't quite reach. It wasn't easy with her full weight on him and he inched his pocket closer to his hand with his foot, almost tipping her off in the process.

"Look, we'll just use mine - "

"Nearly there."

When he'd finally gotten the condom out and rolled it on she raised an eyebrow. "Is that pineapple?"

"It's all they had in the machine at Esso."

"That was before we even got anywhere near Shoreditch."

"You caught me." He innocently held up his hands.

"If I'd known that, I would have shagged you sooner."

"Try not to sound too desperate."

"You say that like you're not."

People like them had developed a shorthand, skipping all the usual getting-to-know-you stuff. He was balanced, no weird hang ups, had interests outside of work. His body under the t-shirt wasn't amazing, but had a kind of every-man buffness to it. He would have made an Okay boyfriend in another universe. Every so often she wondered what it would be like if these liaisons turned into something real, but she usually succeeded in stabbing that idea to death.

They fucked on the sofa for two hundred and ninety seconds. She knew this because she had a clock on the shelf behind the sofa.

It was basically Okay. He carried on bucking even after he was spent, which was very considerate, but when she finally relaxed and hung her head in exhaustion, he did stop.

"Are you done?" She felt him twitch deep inside.

"I'm done." He slid out of her and she climbed straight off without saying another word, numb and guilty. She couldn't look him in the eye right now, afraid that he'd want to kiss her, to look at her some more. But that was not what she wanted; she wasn't in love with him. "Jesus Christ, Janine. I don't think I can even walk now."

She unhooked her bra and finally rolled down the stockings, standing in front of him completely naked. "That was… well, it was certainly interesting."

"Interesting-good?"

"Yeah, it was Okay." She reached for a silk kimono on a hook by the door. "Do you always come so quickly or was it just the anticipation of tonight?"

"I don't know, lets do it again and I'll let you know."

"I, uh, have an early start," she said, tying up the belt and beginning to tidy up a bit. "I think it's better if you just go."

"Nothing like a spot of post-coital frankness." He tucked himself back into his pants, still semi-hard and blushing, and discretely wrapped the condom in a tissue.

For some reason, she didn't hate him as much as she thought she would. "I'm not joking, Sandy. If Charles finds out we screwed - "

"What on earth has it got to do with him? He's not your boyfriend."

"You saw what he was like in the office. Everything for him is a kind of power game. He thinks if I ever meet someone I'll leave him, and he'll make my life hell to stop that happening. I've got to be careful."

He stroked her arm, his jeans still dangerously unbuttoned. "Seriously, you have nothing to worry about, I promise."

"Don't. Don't be like that." She reached for his things. "Let's just call this what it is, Okay? It was a bit of fun. I barely know you. I got my rocks off and you can leave now."

"If that's how you really feel."

She chucked him his coat. The sleeve slapped him in the face. "Oh, and that thing you did, near the end."

"Yeah."

"Next time, give me a fair warning."

"Oh," he said, hand on the door handle, "was that not Okay? You weren't offended enough to tell me to stop."

"I didn't say I didn't want you to do it. I just think we should discuss it before hand, alright?"

"Fair enough," he shrugged, wedged in the doorway.

"I'll call you sometime." She pushed him out and shut the door quickly before he could protest.

* * *

_Thursday 11th October 2012_

* * *

Janine hoped she wouldn't bump into Sandy at the office. Magnussen had engaged the PI without consulting her so she had no idea what their appointments were. It wasn't that she didn't want to see him again, on the contrary, she believed that if they had the opportunity and the inclination to practice the art of fucking more often then it could turn into something quite positive. Two sex addicts who had found each other against all odds in a huge city. But she knew that she wouldn't be able to keep up the ruse if they were all in the same room together. She was preparing to leave the office for lunch and he still hadn't shown up. If he was coming at all, he would have come by now.

Magnussen caught her on the way to the lift when he was just coming out of his meeting with Cornelius, the page-one editor. "I was hoping I'd be able to pin you down today, talk about our travel arrangements."

"It'll have to wait until I get back from lunch. You know how I get when I'm hungry."

"Don't remind me." When she looked down and didn't respond he said, "Oh, you're still angry with me for the other day."

In fact, she'd been pleasantly surprised how charming he'd been on the plane to Dubai and how normal he'd seemed all weekend. Normal for him, at least. They were back to their usual working relationship. She wasn't going to forgive him that easily, though. She couldn't be bought off with yet another dress. "Not at all, it was just a misunderstanding."

His eyes searched her for a moment but she couldn't tell what he was thinking. "How was your time with Sandy last night?"

_Straight face, straight face. S_he checked there was no-one else lurking around in the reception area. "He's very good at what he does, but I'm afraid the evening was a bit of a damp squib."

"How so?"

_You know very well things didn't go to plan, you arse-hole. _"Look, Charles, I think you may be asking the wrong person. I'm not cut out for that kind of thing and I really don't want to do it again. It's not what you're paying me for anyway."

"Of course not," he said to her great surprise. He sounded almost, well, jovial. "If you're not comfortable. I should never have put you in that position."

"Thank-you," she said, relieved, "I knew you'd be reasonable."

"In fact, I've decided to call off the case against Miss Harrington."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, it seems I've got what I wanted from her after all. When you come back from lunch, you can call Mr North and tell him his services are no longer needed. And sort out some kind of remuneration for the inconvenience. Whatever is his," he waved his hand, "usual fee."

"Certainly." Janine turned toward the lift again, feeling a bit better about everything, and swiped her ID card. If Sandy was no longer in Magnussen's employ, there would be less chance of him finding out she was still seeing him. However, she was still confused as to why Sandy would claim to be on a retainer. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything about that. "Easy come, easy go. I think it was Confucius who said that. Or was it Elvis?" She stepped into the lift, hoping Magnussen wouldn't notice she was trying to make a quick getaway.

"The world is full of useful maxims. I wonder, have you ever heard the parable of the little girl whose employer found out she nearly got caught laundering money for her ex-fiance?"

_What. The. Fuck._ She swallowed thickly. "No."

"I always liked that one," Magnussen laughed, pretending to search his brain for the story, "it was rather... funny. Do you know how it ended?"

"No." Her heart quickened, pressing the button for the floor below.

"She thought she got the job because of her excellent qualifications. Hilarious. What she didn't realise is that he never, ever employed someone who didn't have a past he could exploit. He had to protect himself, you see. Even from those closest to him."

"And what did she do?" The doors began to close, not quickly enough, her palpitations deafening now.

"Everything he wanted." Magnussen smirked as he passed out of view.


	3. Parabolique

**_PARABOLIQUE_**

* * *

_Sunday 11th August 2013_

* * *

"Well, it's not the first time someone's showed up at two a.m. in a tuxedo." Rodney Vincent, not his real name, stood aside and ushered Sherlock Holmes into his starkly minimalist riverside apartment. The walls were white and the furniture was sparse. It was one of a series of places Rodney had rented through a proxy so that he could never be traced.

"It's called a morning suit. I've been to a wedding. Mind if I smoke?" Sherlock extracted a packet of twenty Embassy and a lighter from the pocket of his greatcoat and flung himself down on the sofa. He didn't wait for an answer before lighting up. He could see the bedroom through the crack of the door, strewn with used linen, and something vaguely human passed out on the bed.

The Samurai swords displayed on the wall were real and slightly worrying.

Rodney, a greasy, twitching rat of a man, poured him a scotch from the gleaming white sideboard. "I thought you'd given up."

Sherlock took a long, sublime drag on the cigarette, eyelids fluttering closed in ecstasy. "Oh, that is... that is beyond description. Why did I give up again?"

Rodney placed the scotch and an ashtray down on the glass coffee table before Sherlock could drop ash on anything. "Must've been one 'ell of a bun fight. What the fuck 'appened at it to bring you to me? Was it the bride or the groom?"

"Neither." None of them were the reason he was here tonight. Not John. Not Mary. Not the... the _baby. Ugh, _did he have to use that word? The infant. The pre-nate. Why would anyone voluntarily choose to be helpless and tiny?

"Both then. Y'know, most people would try to break this palpable tension with some kinda light 'umour."

"You're my dealer, not my therapist, and I'd feel a lot more comfortable if people would stop switching roles. Much better for everyone."

Rodney sat down opposite Sherlock on one of the white leather sofas, dangling this own glass of scotch over his knee. "You've been away a long time."

"Sober for four years, can you believe that?" There was a beat while Sherlock considered the irony and blew smoke at the ceiling.

"Knew a guy who went back on it after ten years. They always come back. Still, you 'aven't done it yet. There's still time to walk away."

"Some salesman you are."

"If you're gonna be found in some alley tomorrow, that's just as bad for business. You've got a public profile now."

"Oh, you know about that."

"You think I don't read the news? Sobriety's done a lot for you, sure you wanna throw all that away?"

"You know me, Rodders, I'm careful."

"Careful, eh? I heard about the epic bender when you couldn't save that posh girl from her boyfriend. First time you ever touched crack. Flatlined about six times wasn't it - "

Sherlock cut him off, "yes, well, I'd rather not revisit that episode, thank you. I was young and idealistic and I learned from my mistakes."

"Sure this ain't the same thing?"

"I'm touched." Sherlock smoked elegantly for a moment, and then stubbed it out with an inch to go. "Actually, it's nothing to do with tonight. It's for a case."

"What case?"

"One where I have to convince someone I'm a hopeless smack-head and try not to kill myself in the process."

"China white, then."

"And not kill me. I thought I said that."

"Alright, alright, steady on. I've got just the thing." Rodney got up and went over to the kitchen. "Glad you came to me and didn't just go for any old junk off the streets."

"You forget; I see myself as a connoisseur."

Rodney rummaged in the oven and came back with a sealed Fed-ex package.

Sherlock opened it and extricated five individual vials, holding them up to the light like insidious chandelier crystals.

"Pharmaceutical grade 'ydromorphone," Rodney announced proudly, "the stuff they give you when you get crushed in a train crash and they 'ave to amputate your leg in an 'urry but the morphine's not working."

"That's an oddly... specific scenario," Sherlock frowned.

"The Rolls Royce of opiates, that is. Not as potent gram-for-gram as the china but much cleaner, safer. That don't mean it's an inferior hit, though. Every fucker would be on that if they knew how good it was, but I think the government tries to 'ide it, a conspiracy, like. Two mills of that and you won't never wanna come down. Fuck, you won't just be close to God, you'll _be_ God."

"I don't know." Sherlock screwed up his face with doubt as he read one of the tiny labels, and then threw the package back.

Rodney caught it and looked at him for a moment. "Ha, I know what you're trying to do. You're doing that psychological trick on me. It's not gonna work. I'm not moving on the price." He typed a figure into his phone and slid it over the table.

Sherlock took one look and choked on the cheap scotch. "What are you trying to do to me, Rodders?"

"You've been away, you don't know the scene any more. All I'm saying is, this stuff's in short supply, even the 'ospitals ain't got enough. I gotta take huge risks to even get it. Got a guy in Germany who - "

"It's a bit steep."

"Come on, don't give me that. I know you're good for it. People come to me because they want discretion, convenience and quality. They don't care about the price. An addict with money is a dangerous thing."

"Have you tried it?"

"Ain't no way I'm going down that road. I'm not stupid; I'm an entrepreneur. I'll leave it to the desperate cases, the end-of-the-liners. Me, I'm 'appy as Larry, can't you tell?" The rat gestured around him. "Do most of my selling online now, yeah, the dark web, that's how it's done. Raking in ten to twenty a week. 'Course, if most of my clients were like you..."

Sherlock knocked back the rest of his drink. He grimaced at the strength of the alcohol, unused to taking his psychoactive substances orally. There were more efficient, more elegant methods of delivery.

_Dutch courage._

Rodney always tried to soften you up before he went in for the kill. God knows what he did with the money. Property, most likely. He must be a millionaire by now; he'd been doing this for at least a decade, supplying to soap-stars and Canary Wharf high flyers. 'People' liked Rodney. Sherlock didn't. "I could just walk into a hospital and steal it."

"And risk getting arrested? What would 'appen to your client if you ended up in the clink?"

"Good point."

"That's why you come straight to the top. Ain't no juggler on the streets gonna protect your sweet arse like Rodney Fucking Vincent."

"Don't for one second delude yourself that you are at the top of the food chain." Several sweaty stand-offs with heavily armed Lithuanian gangsters had taught him that. Rodney looked hurt. Sherlock deposited his empty glass on the table and prepared to leave.

"You got the sponds or not?"

Sherlock handed him an envelope.

"Do I need to count it?"

"Now you're the one trying to break the tension with humour." Sherlock received the package and concealed it in his poacher's pocket.

"You need works?"

"Sorted, thanks, but it's ever so considerate of you to ask."

"All part of the service." Rodney shrugged.

"Oh, there was one more thing." Sherlock reached into his breast pocket as he turned back. "This is a post-dated cheque for a grand."

"What's this about, then?" Rodney examined it for authenticity, his swarthy brow furrowing.

"It's a fail-safe for me and an incentive for you. If I come back for more within a month you are not to sell it to me. Under _any_ circumstances. No matter how much I beg, do you understand me? That should cover the inconvenience."

"If you say so. What happens after a month?"

"I should have the case closed by then." _Because it'll either be solved or Lord Smallwood will be dead._

"And what's to stop you getting the gear from someone else?"

"I burned a lot of bridges. Pissed off the Lithuanians. Everyone thinks I'm going to grass on them now. But let's say I do; I'll be dead within a month and you'll get your grand anyway."

"And in the unlikely event that I don't see you again?"

"I congratulate myself on my colossal self-control and then I have the bank stop the cheque."

"'Ardly a very good incentive now, is it?"

"You'll only profit from my weakness, of course, but you can't deny; it's faultless logic."

"You _will_ be back for more. Within a week. I'm one 'undred percent sure of it."

"We shall see." Sherlock swept back out into the hall, narrowly missing Rodney's next visitor, a slight young woman with a baker's boy cap pulled down low over her face and hands in hoodie pockets. "By the way; you were wrong. It was the chief bridesmaid," he said as he walked away.

"Good night, Mr 'olmes." Rodney didn't even look up from the cheque as he ushered the girl in and closed the door. "Fucking lunatic."

But when he went back to the kitchen to deposit the money, something occurred to him. How did Holmes know to bring the exact amount? How did he know he wasn't going to charge more? Who the fuck pays someone a grand not to sell them more? For the rest of the night, Rodney couldn't shake the feeling that he'd been played in some way.

* * *

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut as he took a cab from Bermondsey back to Baker Street. He savoured the sensation of being carried along, out of control, as they sped past street-lights, oranges and reds and whites and greens.

He didn't want to know about the cabbie's liver disease, but there it was in his jaundiced sclera. Or the Nando's sauce on his shoe, even though he'd already eaten at home. Wife - no, long term girlfriend is a bad cook, then. Or the bookie's receipts in his pocket. Or the reason he hadn't wanted to go on holiday to Alicante. Again. He didn't want to know about so many things, the things people didn't need to say out loud.

The streets were empty and there was a lingering humidity in the air. He'd always enjoyed the small hours, the freshness of night wiping away the sins of the day and the anticipation of sunrise. But tonight, he could only see forward to one thing.

He'd kept his great-coat on throughout his escape, despite the clement weather. John and Mary's happiness had left him cold and guilty. There was a mass like a rock that refused to budge from his chest.

Much better to concentrate on the case.

He'd perfected 'The Plan' on the journey back to London. He'd had to work quickly; Lord Smallwood was running out of time and Sherlock hadn't had any success until now. It had been months since Elizabeth had first contacted him. Nine months to be exact. Enough time to conceive and give birth to a human being. The realisation had precipitated an ironic snort from him and made the other passengers on the night train turn around and fail spectacularly at minding their own business. Most of them were drunk anyway; gamblers returning home red eyed, sheepish and broke from surreptitious forays out to any establishments that hadn't seen them barred yet. Establishments far from their loved-one's eyes and consciousness.

He'd ignored them and returned to his meditations.

Meeting Janine had been the best break that he'd ever had.

While he was giving her the impromptu dance lesson that she happened to mention the telegrams. _What was so funny about the telegrams anyway?_ One of them had been from someone called Cam. Or was it CAM? She'd told him that the Watsons weren't personally acquainted with the newspaper magnate, that they weren't that interested in her work, and that she hadn't told her boss whose wedding she was attending. Surely Charles wasn't _that_ vulgar, that he'd send a sarcastic message about Mary's deceased parents, just because she was marrying a man that very often graced the front page of some of his publications.

She'd told him all this as he'd twirled her around, joking that Charles might be worried he was going to lose his front-page stars to this marriage.

But by the time she'd perfected the basic steps in a waltz, she'd dismissed the idea. It was probably just an old friend called Cameron. There were a lot of Cams in the world. Sherlock had laughed it off, commenting that there were indeed hundreds of Camerons born every year, and feigning disinterest in her work. So he'd waltzed around with Magnussen's PA, breathing her perfume, studying her eyes and wondering if she could see his soul.

For her it was just a dance, nothing more, nothing less. For him it was a gift of hope. She was the key to the whole operation, and it really couldn't have been more perfect. It was like Christmas.

* * *

_This is not about getting high._

_This is a cold, hard, technical experiment. It's essential to the success of the case. It's not about feelings. It's all about the work._

Sherlock returned to an empty flat, the tiny glass vials burning a hole in his pocket like nothing before. Elizabeth had given him _carte blanche_ to do whatever it took, within reason, and now it was time for a government sponsored dope-fest. He had to experiment if this plan was to work. He didn't like too many variables.

At least, that's what he kept telling himself.

This was not 'going back'. This was just something that was necessary and that he knew how to do.

He shrugged off the rented jacket and tie, locking the doors in case he wasn't up by the time Mrs Hudson got back. If he died tonight, then he didn't want her to be the one to find him. It was a ridiculous thought, not fully formed, but it was enough to make him go back and try the handles.

_You're not going to die. You've done this a thousand times._

Gathering some kit, he went to his room and sat on his bed for a long time, the only light coming from the lamp on his night stand. He stared at the tiny vial that contained a monster. It wasn't dead; it was only sleeping. Once he woke the monster, there might be no going back. You can stab it with your steely knives, but you just can't kill the beast.

He looked up the pharmacokinetics on a medicines app that John had told him about. But no amount of chemical information, analysis, or reasoning could take away the repulsive seediness of what he was about to do. A responsible junkie with all the right equipment was still a junkie. It was like gilding a shit. He could justify it any way he wanted, but at the end of it all, he was still abusing himself.

He rolled up the sleeve of the crisp white shirt and swabbed his arm with an alcohol wipe, filling the hypodermic with only half the recommended dose. After all, it wasn't like he was in pain. He wasn't having his leg amputated.

Just his heart.

He got rid of the air bubbles and a tiny jet of the serum spurted over the duvet. His phone and a pre-filled dose of Naloxone from John's first aid kit were close by, just in case.

He clenched his fist four or five times to increase the circulation, and waited, needle poised in hand, as blood pump through his cephalic and median cubital veins. They stood out like the marble blood vessels of a renaissance statue. One breath. Then two. Between breaths he aimed the needle. He was like a marksman sizing up his target, slowing down his autonomic nervous system so that a stray twitch wouldn't scatter the bullets asunder.

There was still time to change his mind. Heartbeats stretched into infinity. He was having slight palpitations. Where did this come from so suddenly? Was he so nervous? It was like the first time, knowing that nothing would ever be the same again. Like plunging off The Serpent's Lair on Inis Mór. Or the thrill of that first theft. Only without the fear of Mycroft's sanctimonious preaching. Where was his voice of reason now?

And then the strangest thought popped into his head. _What would Molly say if she could see you?_

In a fit of what he could only describe as reckless and sadistic rebellion, he sent the needle home. Blood swirled in with the fluid as he pulled the syringe back and then delivered a shot of the devil's finest into his bloodstream. He did it all on autopilot, without thinking. It was like riding a bike, only for him, riding a bike was more like shooting up. He let the used needle fall away from his hand and pressed on the wound.

One heart beat... two beats...

_Seven seconds._

And then -

_Oh, fuck._

_Rodney was right. That is some good shit._

He lay down on the covers and waited for the euphoria to climax. The whole universe was reflected in those constricting pupils, like a Galilean lens. It was both beautiful and horrific at the same time. A fucking elephant was sitting on his chest. He was sinking through the floor, through existence...

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. This might not be good._

He waited a million years.

He tried to remember that he was supposed to keep breathing if he wanted to continue living.

He forgot about the phone and the Naloxone.

He forgot his name.

He kissed _'welcome back'_ to the monster. It was out and now it was he that was in the cage. The slave grovels so easily before his master. But, _oh God,_ he could get used to this. Molten gold coursed through his veins.

Then he passed out.


	4. Existante

**_EXISTANTE_**

* * *

_Sunday 11th August 2013_

* * *

Aspirin was the only name on Janine's lips that bright morning.

She cracked open crusty eyelids to find that she was alone in the bed and fecking birds were tweeting outside on the window ledge. She imagined popping them off in a tin-pot fairground shooting range, or at least opening the window and crushing the little bastards, but avian carnage might not go down too well with the hotelier.

The birdsong echoed through her brain like a locomotive. This could quite possibly be one of the worst hang-overs she'd ever had. It had started with a modest amount of champagne - there were toasts and speeches etc. - and then she had moved on to the harder stuff as the evening had worn on. Whether her binge had been fuelled by Sherlock's abandonment of her was still under investigation. The grey-haired copper had bought her a couple of rum and cokes. Even now she wished she'd held her shit together enough to proposition him. _Damn,_ what was his name? It was all so fuzzy now.

She stumbled into the bathroom for the compulsatory morning-after urination, stopping for a glance in the mirror on the way. The lilac bridesmaid's dress was hitched unattractively around her hips and her mascara was smudged up her face.

_If only Daddy could see his good little girl now._

Her Lois Vuitton toiletries bag sat in the bathroom next to some of those tiny bottles of limited utility. They were Molton Brown; far exceeding her expectations of the modest, last-minute on-line bed and breakfast booking, so she scooped them all up and deposited them in the wash bag. She stripped off the dress, stepped into the shower, and spread one of the shampoos through her hair while she analysed her evening.

How had one man managed to captivate her so? She'd thought of nothing but Sherlock since they'd locked eyes at the front of the church, their meeting hitherto postponed by one schedule conflict or another. Until then he was just a myth in a tabloid, the mysterious subject of John's anecdotes. Now that they had a kind of rapport, a conversation, a touch on the arm, he was real and fleshed out and she began to feel things which made her disconcertingly vulnerable, like she might do something impulsive. Her interest had deepened when he solved a crime during his best-man speech. It was truly spectacular. She wouldn't be able to get on with her life while he was out there being all brilliant and... Sherlocky. There was only one way to fix this; get it out of her system.

She was overdue for a good shagging.

Sandy had stopped returning her calls a couple of months ago. Up to that point she'd thought it was going well. They'd meet up regularly for a no-strings-attached shag or a takeaway, and he wouldn't require her to meet his friends or anything boring and couple-y. He understood her need for discretion because he needed it too - the perfect arrangement. But then she'd had a busy couple of weeks in June. She'd neglected him, and when she texted,he hadn't replied. She didn't want to be pathetic and needy so she let it slide.

Then a ray of hope; meeting Sherlock was like all her birthdays at once.

Wrapped in a towel, Janine flumped herself down on the bed and checked her phone. There were about 15 messages from Charles. He didn't even know the meaning of the word 'boundaries', that man, not to mention that his humour was dryer than a dromedary's tongue in a Timbuktuan sunbed.

**_Hope you are enjoying your nice, fattening wedding cake._**

Sounded like he was in a bad mood.

Every month, she vowed, would be her last. Every pay-cheque that came through, she would look at the figure and tell herself that it wasn't worth enduring the way he treated people, the manipulation and the eyeball flicking.

She scrambled to the other side of the dubious Jacquard covers, rummaging in her bag for a change of outfit. Life had very quickly taught her to travel light and she rarely carried more than a change of underwear and a flirty dress.

Once dressed, she slipped out of the room on tiptoes and made her way downstairs for coffee. People were probably still asleep and in a much worse state than she, so she daren't creak the floorboards. It was a habit that had germinated in the claustrophobic Dun Laoghaire council house she'd shared with an older brother and sister who, as students, were rather too fond of their liquid refreshment and rarely rose before midday. While they were frittering away their lives, she had been squirrelling away knowledge and skills, making herself indispensable. Trouble was, now that she was indispensable to someone, it wasn't all it cracked up to be.

The dining room was full of people from the wedding. That strange little woman with her yellow bow and her meat-dagger fiancé looked like they'd had a fight, heads silently bowed over breakfast. She couldn't remember their names. But there was one person she did know.

"Oh, hi," said Chris.

"Good God, does everyone have to talk so loud?"

"Hangover?"

A waitress brought Chris's bacon and eggs.

"Like you wouldn't believe." She joined him at the table. "How are they?"

"How's what?"

She detected a tinge of confusion and embarrassment over what happened last night. Chris had abandoned her after one dance to have a row with his date, and when she'd looked around for Sherlock, he'd apparently jilted her before delivering on the much-hyped dance. God, why did people have to be so complicated? That's why she didn't have real friends, people she thought might be useful one day. When they became too much like hard work, or developed signs of an attachment, she would drop them like a hot King Edward. Some might call her cold and ruthless, but as far as Janine was concerned, people were vastly over-rated.

"The eggs. How are the eggs here?"

"I believe they're free range," Chris said, brittlely.

"So..." she purred, "what happened to your date with the uncomfortable underwear?"

"Angie. She went home last night. She wasn't all that impressed with my hand jive." He did a nervous little laugh.

"So, we were both sleeping alone last night, then?"

"Don't rub it in. Yeah, thanks for that Sherlock mate." Chris rolled his eyes.

"How well do you know Sherlock?"

"You just come right out and say what you want, don't you?" He leaned back, mug pressed to his lips while she ordered breakfast from the passing waitress. "I guess you could say that he saved my life."

"I think I read about you."

"Then you'll know that I tried… tried to, you know."

"Kill yourself," she said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah."

"And Sherlock and John stopped you?"

"We kept in touch and now and then they defer to me on things geek, whatever's outside their sphere of experience. Comics, sci-fi…"

"I can't imagine there are that many cases that would involve a knowledge of sci-fi."

"You'd be surprised. There was a married couple who were heavily into Star Trek and I was able to shed some light on the nature of the relationships within the show and the consequently homicidal affiliations they made with their respective ships."

"Ships?"

"Relationships. For example, some people believe Kirk belongs with Spock and some people believe McCoy's behaviour toward Spock hides a latent homosexual desire."

"You don't say."

"Without the insight that a knowledge of the fandom provides, he never would have solved the crime."

Chris wouldn't have been the worst choice for a forgettable fling. There wasn't anything horribly wrong with him, except that his glasses were too heavy and they kept slipping down his nose. That would drive her bloody crazy. But then, Sherlock had been basing his suggestions on availability alone. "But, what's he actually like, in his natural habitat?"

Chris drank more coffee before answering. "Um, I know he comes over all intense and cerebral, but when you get to know him, he actually has a heart. Sometimes I think he doesn't even know he's showing it. It does tend to come out when he's talking someone down from topping themselves, though. Ask Henry."

"Henry?"

"Henry Knight, the Dartmoor Beast, Baskerville..."

"Oh, right. So, he has got friends."

"I suppose you could call us his friends. People who help out because he's helped them. More like a network of contacts he can call on when he needs something. Or to make up the numbers at a wedding when they don't have enough real friends or relatives."

"Interesting." They might have more in common than she first thought. This made Sherlock even more suitable for her latest conquest; he had moral principles, yet didn't form attachments easily. "Chris," she said as her food arrived, "How are you getting back to the city?"

"I brought my car."

"How about you give me a lift and we'll have little chat on the way?"

"If you, um, if you say so."

The poor, unsuspecting lamb had no idea he was going to be interrogated for every last drop of information he had on Sherlock Holmes. He would give her everything because he would not be able to resist her charms, and he would never know he was the unwitting accomplice in the detective's romantic subjugation.

"Good." Janine tucked into her bacon and eggs with enthusiasm. Things were on the up.

* * *

It was the soundscape that betrayed the fact he was still on earth. The screech of seagulls dissecting someone's bins down the street. The murmur of next door's Radio Four on their kitchen window sill. General chatter and cars making their way down Baker Street.

_No hurry._

There was a lilting change in the brightness of the room caused by the rhythmic flutter of the curtains in the breeze. Red and black danced on his retinas. He'd left the window open.

_"Coo-ee!"_ Mrs Hudson unlocked the front door and bustled in with her overnight bag and something slung over her other arm... two, no, three items of dry cleaning, hat boxes and his violin. _"Anybody home? Sherlock?"_

Sherlock's eyes flew open and he threw himself out of the dishevelled bed clothes. His left arm and leg were still asleep, and he tripped and hit the floor face first.

Disentangling himself from the grey sheet, he realised he was still wearing his clothes from the wedding, only now one white sleeve was defiled with spots of blood. He shoved down the rush of guilt and lurched his way to the bathroom. It was like two thousand and three all over again.

_Too late. Done it now. Might as well embrace it._

* * *

Sherlock concealed the remaining vials and hypodermics in the travel case of his microscope, and decided that he would go shopping. He would also have to, at some point, return the wedding outfits that Mrs Hudson had 'thoughtfully' carried back from the hotel. That had been his responsibility, before he'd walked out of the reception, and boy wouldn't the old harridan let him forget it. '_I mean, really,'_ she'd said, '_skipping out on us at a time like that, not even waiting to see them off.'_

So, he'd concluded that the only way to avoid being henpecked and besieged by guilt was to get some fresh air.

But it wasn't fresh. It was hot and sticky and irritating, and smelled of Tesco's bakery and the stench of the unwashed _hoi polloi_. A child's sickly sweet ice-lolly, redolent with isoamyl acetate. Asphalt melting in its midday measure of ultraviolet-B. Spices and anguish and buses and disappointment. London in the summer.

How he loathed it. Summer, even an English one, wasn't exactly conducive to dressing smartly, which was the backbone of his self-image.

He felt decidedly choleric as he walked to WHSmith, though it was probably more to do with his plummeting endorphin levels than the irascible landlady. He must be careful to leave at least a week between doses, as he didn't much fancy riding the merry-go-round of addiction again. It would be only a matter of time before the effects diminished and he'd find himself needing more and more of the drug to gratify that primitive, sybaritic part of his brain.

A week would also give the injection site a chance to heal. One could be explained away, but when you started to run out of places to safely inject, that was when you got into trouble. He was still haunted by the plight of tragic old Jasper Reid, who wasn't deterred from narcotics by the amputation of his left arm and started injecting himself between the toes. Jasper had built a name for himself as that crazy, one-armed dude who injected in his feet and didn't care for his ulcers. He'd hit an artery one fateful evening and it was goodnight Vienna. They found him weeks later, in a bath in a condemned high-rise, the body partially disintegrated from the long soak. He'd ripped in two and spilled a colony of blue-bottle larvae when the undertakers had tried to move him. In darker times, Sherlock had fantasised that this would also be his destiny.

Anyway.

He was sure John and Mary would forgive him for absconding from the reception. His obligations were over and done with, after all, and he had other things to attend to. Like work. Not that John would know anything about that, postponing his entire life to go and have sex for two weeks in a foreign country. Why did people need to go to Thailand to have sex? Couldn't they just do it at home, with access to a decent cup of tea afterward? What possible effect could a different climate and ecological profile have on the quality of one's orgasm? Perhaps there was room for experimentation upon that theme. Geographical variations on the satisfaction quotient of intercourse. The image of various anonymous people humping away was somehow not that dissimilar to the scene of Jasper's corpse being carried off in several mushy pieces to be incinerated. _Sex, death, what's the difference?_ He could wax lyrical about the connection between sensuality and the ecstasy of death.

He stopped abruptly outside Smith's, not really knowing how his feet had taken him there when his head was elsewhere. _Reliable old transport._ Inside the air-conditioned shop, he put on the baffled-but-cordial-young-man routine to coerce a conveniently placed assistant into telling him which were the best women's magazines. The act probably wasn't necessary, but people gave away the most valuable insights when they were playing along with his little games. And, after last night's adventure, he needed in some small way to prove to himself he was still here and still cogent.

He introduced himself to 'Jenny', a dim, herbivorous, walking fake-tan, as a fiancé trying to impress his beloved with his understanding of womankind, and was interested to note that his claims of betrothal did nothing to deter the lascivious torrent of pheromones. Naturally, he'd observed women's, and men's, sexual interest in him. People desired him because he was unobtainable; it was a universal trope tried and tested by time. Until this point, it had been noncontextual and therefore irrelevant, but now it would be key to the success of phase two.

As Sherlock analysed the dynamics of their reciprocity, Jenny piled him up with copies of Glamour, Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire, magazines she thought would help him understand the inner workings of the female brain, and which most accurately represented the statistical majority of her sex, as well as a list of DVD recommendations. _Sleepless in Seattle, Shall We Dance, When Harry Met Sally, Thelma and Louise, Fried Green Tomatoes, How to Make an American Quilt._ The titles alone were enough to bore him into a heroin addiction.

Paying at the till, he avoided the cashier's gaze as if the exchange with Jenny had exhausted his daily allowance of 'nice'.

He understood people's motivations and desires. Without those insights, he could never solve crimes of passion, or crush errant spouse's hopes of concealing their affairs. He probably understood human nature better than anyone else on earth, but he was out of touch with what qualities a woman might look for in him if she were to consider a relationship.

Sex had always been a detached and disappointing affair, impossible without an adequate supply of cocaine to assuage his crippling anxiety, a symptom of his sense of dissociation with humanity.

Forever-more he would remain aloof, just an observer in this world, never participating in the libidinous fulfilment of others. He would never gaze longingly into someone's eyes in the afterglow of a physical union. He would never experience the joy of siring offspring with another human being. He would never be someone's 'other half', with all the proverbial rainbows and butterflies, pop-psychology _accoutrements_.

But now it was time to put history aside and attempt what was probably the most audacious deception of his career; he was going to fake being in love.

With one of the most bewitching women he'd ever met.

And she was going to fall for him, hook, line and _naufrageur._

* * *

"We're just coming up on Slough," said the driver of the 1997 Ford Fiesta.

Five miles down the M4 Janine had exhausted Chris's knowledge of the most interesting man in Britain. She had the rest of the journey to plan his seduction. This was going to be interesting, given her new insight into the life of Sherlock Holmes.

Apparently, he collected discarded shopping lists found outside the supermarket, profiling the writer's personality, and in some cases, tracing them from their handwriting and eating habits. He kept dog hair on the bathroom window-sill, regularly shunned food and sleep for seventy-two hours at a time, and talked to a skull. All the hallmarks of a bona fide eccentric.

Now that she'd watched him at work, she understood the fascination people had with him. When she'd found out Sherlock was going to be the best man, she'd asked John for all the hot goss and he'd told her to read the blog with a knowing smile. Of course, she'd read the usual tabloid crap. Who hadn't? He was one of the sure-fire topics that sold papers in London. But it was John's own words that had sent a chill down her spine. '_And the madman himself? He's fascinating. Arrogant, imperious, pompous. He's not safe, I know that much.'_

Sounded like a challenge to her.

* * *

Sherlock spent the rest of the day avoiding Mrs Hudson, writing a scathingly sarcastic guest hacked blog post, and poring over the magazines. It was like descending into another dimension, a surrealist nightmare where nothing made any logical sense and everything depended entirely upon emotion.

What about these mascara adverts that said 86% of 173 women agree? 86% of 173 was 150.51. What happened to the other 49% of that last woman? Were there dismembered parts walking around somewhere wearing false eyelashes?

And what the hell was a 'vagacial'?

Of much more interest were the articles about ambition and achievement. It was becoming pretty clear that what women wanted was... everything, basically. They wanted men to be strong and they wanted them to be subservient at the same time. They wanted to be captains of industry and they wanted to stay at home at the same time. They congratulated each other on clipping coupons and saving money, but they also fawned over an extortionately priced handbag. They wanted curly hair one week and straight hair the next, and they tortured it with strange devices to make it submit.

It was all very contradictory.

People devoted their whole lives to fulfilling the quixotic whims of those blessed with a full set of X chromosomes. Who in their right mind would subject themselves to that? It only served to confirm his suspicions that love was a disease, malignant and chimerical.

To seduce a worldly and intelligent woman, he would have to make it seamlessly authentic. Thankfully he had MI6 tradecraft to fall back on. The most believable lies were 99% truth and, even though this was a little on the high side, it was still an acceptable margin. Even if he told her the truth during the endeavour, everything he said would be suspect after he dropped the bombshell. She would just assume it had all been lies, so he was free to tell her anything he wanted, within reason.

To build the kind of rapport that would make her willingly betray her employer for him, they would have to go through good times and bad times, overcome obstacles together, and he was going to have to do it in under thirty days. That was taxing enough for even the very best agents.

He sifted through the wedding invitation paperwork until he found Janine's number.

She would feel stupid and she would hate him. She would probably lose her job. But there were always casualties in war. Defeating Magnussen at his own game came above all else, and there was no other way to win, but to make Janine fall in love with him.

He made the call.

* * *

Janine had just got in when her mobile rang. She had to dump her Aldi bags and wrestle the keys out of the lock before she could answer it.

She didn't recognise the number_._ Maybe Chris gotten the wrong end of the stick when they'd said goodbye and looked her up.

"Hello?" She started unpacking the groceries, resting the phone under the crook of her chin.

_"Hello, Janine,"_ came a deep and familiar voice.

_Better play it cool. _"You're supposed to wait three or four days before you call."

_"I beg your pardon?"_

"At least three days. Anyway, I have a bone to pick with you, mister."

_"Oh yes?"_

"You made me practice the waltz and then you deserted me before we even had a chance to show it off." She stopped stacking tomatoes and onions, and held the phone in her hand again. This deserved her full attention.

_"Yes, yes, I'm sorry about that. Social situations aren't really my thing, but that doesn't excuse me walking out on you. Can you ever forgive me?"_

"I might be able to see my way eventually. I'm guessing that's why you called. To apologise."

_"Actually, there was another reason."_

"Go on."

_"What you said, last night, that you wish I wasn't... It's just that I'm not... not whatever it is you think I am. I'm just... shy."_

"Okay."

_"I... look, I hardly ever... I never do this, so you are going to have to bear with me here."_

"Alright."

_"Janine, since we met... I, I, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. In a good way. I've been thinking about you and - "_

"And you thought the best thing to do about this was to turn into Hugh Grant?"

There was only silence on the other end of the call. _Oops,_ maybe that was a little harsh, maybe she'd scared him off.

_"No,"_ he finally answered and she breathed a silent sigh of relief, _"I was just thinking that I'd like to see you again."_

"I think I'd like to see you too."

_"Well, that's... that's good. And unexpected."_ Silence again. And then, _"I don't really mean unexpected, I mean I didn't take it for granted that you'd... oh bugger."_

"Sherlock, are you asking me out?"

_"I suppose I am. I mean, yes, I most certainly am. I'm asking you out on a... date."_

She heard him do that long exhale of _'whooo'_ people did when they were psyching themselves up. It was very sweet. "We've already had a first date. In a way," she said. "There _was_ dinner and dancing. And crime."

_"Oh, yes. I suppose we have. In a way"_

"Only you have to promise not to jilt me this time."

_"I promise I will try not to run out on you."_

"Because that was really out of order, y'know."

_"Yes, and like I said, I'm very sorry and I hope you can forgive me and I'd like to make it up to you by taking you out."_

"How about tomorrow night?"

_"Tomorrow would be fine except I have to sort out the wedding photos as soon as possible. I promised. Seeing as the photographer is now in police custody."_

"Oh, yeah. Of course - "

_"Under any other circumstances - "_

"No, you're right, you're totally right. What about Tuesday? I have every Tuesday off. We could have lunch."

_"Alright, Tuesday. You're on."_

A slightly awkward silence.

"Sherlock," she said, "this is the part where you tell me when you're going to pick me up."

_"Oh, right, yes, of course. I hadn't really thought about this part."_

"How about this then; you choose a time and a place and I'll be there. And you can show me your version of London "

_"Okay, this is interesting. Explain."_

"Well, I've been here two years now and I've never really done the tourist thing. All I ever seem to do is travel between the office and home and I was wondering if you would let me see the city through your eyes. I can't think of a better introduction than through someone who adores her." Seconds passed. Her ice-cream desperately needed putting away. "Sherlock," she said.

_"Yes. Um, Okay. I'll text you."_

"Great."

_"Stand by for further instructions."_

"I will."

_"Okay. Well, um, bye."_

"Goodbye, Sherlock."

_"Goodbye... Um, Janine?"_

"Yes."

_"Thank you for not making this too difficult."_

"It's no problem. But, y'know, you don't have to make it sound so much like pulling teeth."

_"Oh God, I'm so sorry - "_

"I'll see you Tuesday, then?" she said to interrupt any possible waffling.

_"Yes and, um, bye." _He clicked off.

Janine stood in her tiny kitchenette, staring at the phone in her hand. _Well, this is a turn up for the books._ She let out a little laugh of amazement. She might not have to put all the effort into seducing him after all. But that call had obviously been agony. He'd sounded by turns supremely confident –_ fake_ \- and a nervous wreck - _real_. It must have taken a lot of guts, considering how terrified he'd looked when he'd stood up and realised he was actually addressing a room full of people with a speech.

It was like watching road-kill.

* * *

Sherlock laid his phone reverently on the kitchen table.

_Oh God, that was HORRIBLE._

_Why do people put themselves through this?_

He'd been planning for more Cary Grant than Hugh Grant, but halfway through the six or so rings of her phone, he'd realised that coming over all suave and perfect might actually work against him. The plan would work better if he played human and fallible. Unthreatening.

And he was going to have to keep this up until she either inadvertently gave him a clue how to get into Magnussen's office or home, or she let him in. It was going to be quite a ride.


	5. Tour d'Ivoire

**_TOUR d'IVOIRE_**

* * *

_Tuesday 13th August 2013_

* * *

The text had read;

**51.508370, -0.078546**

**10:00**

**SH**

Janine had immediately recognised it as a grid reference and googled it. This was the game they were going to play, so. If she had half a brain she'd know when and where to meet him. He needn't have signed it SH, though. She should know who he was by now. She'd entered his number into her iphone as soon as their Sunday conversation had ended, although not under his real name; her code word for him would be 'Global Communications' from now on. She couldn't have Charles peeking over her shoulder to see who was texting her, the nosey git.

She got the tube to Tower Hill and emerged into the blinding sunlight at precisely nine fifty five, giving her enough time to cross the street and wander down to the ticketing office of the actual tower. She had a good feeling about this. Fresh air filled her nostrils and Tower Bridge loomed in the background, beside the fortress itself. Funny, she'd never taken much notice of it before, but if this is what he wanted to do...

Sherlock had obviously seen her before she noticed him, because he was smiling from under dark ray-bans. It wasn't the smug, self-satisfied smile she expected, but one of pure, innocent contentment, which made her wonder if it really was him, or a doppleganger. She might be imagining all this. The wedding invitation, the attempted murder, the easy banter they'd shared, the unexpected call and the cryptic message - what if it was all just a fantasy in her head?

He watched her approach with arms folded and ankles nonchalantly crossed, half sitting on one of the bollards. He was wearing beige chinos and a crisp white shirt, which made him look all casual and summery and European, and completely different to the image she held of him. As she got closer, he stood to his full height and ran his long fingers all the way through his hair.

_Oh, God, don't do that, you beautiful man._

"Makes a change from that stuffy penguin suit," she said as he removed the shades and gave her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. His chin was freshly shaved and she could detect a fleeting hint of Imperial Leather.

"You scrub up quite well yourself," he held her by the hand and twirled her around at arms-length to get a better look at her dress, "when you're not dressed like a packet of Parma Violets."

That morning she'd ransacked the wardrobe for something remotely appropriate for a first date, strewing the rejects all over the flat and dithering over which knickers to wear – _Bridget Jones or Belle du Jour?_ – and eventually opted for the white linen shift and the Spanx. After all, it wasn't like he was going to be getting into her pants today. She'd completed the outfit with a large canvas tote and wedges so that he wouldn't have to lean down too far to kiss her. "I never could stand those. Never could stand purple for that matter."

"Well, I can't stand ties, so that makes two of us." He unconsciously touched the shirt button below his throat as if in confirmation. "How was your Monday?"

"Same old, same old. My boss hates it when I have a lot of time off, but it was worth it. How about you?"

"I spent most of the day queueing at Snappy Snaps - "

"Oh, the photos, of course - "

"And in the evening Mrs Hudson insisted on playing board games because she was worried I was lonely." He looked down then and she saw a glimmer of the shy man showing through the suave exterior, but when he looked up his eyes were bright. "Shall we?"

He offered his elbow as they headed toward the gates of the attraction. She linked her arm through his and they walked companionable over the cobblestones.

"Shouldn't we…" she looked back at the ticket booth.

"All taken care of."

"Oh, Okay." She had that feeling you get when you're desperate for someone to like you and you're afraid of making a tit out of yourself by saying the wrong thing. So unlike her. She'd done this often enough to be supremely confident, hell, she could probably write the book, so why was she suddenly turning to jelly inside like a giddy teenager? Coming around the corner and seeing him waiting for her like that had made her feel strange. A good strange, but still strange. She hadn't felt like this about a man since, well, a long time at any rate. It was very disconcerting. "I have to say, I was a wee bit surprised that you called."

Sherlock digested that momentarily. "It was a bit out of character for me, but I hope you'll forgive me for saying this; from the moment we met I just couldn't stop thinking about you. Is that alright? I mean, is it alright to admit to that kind of thing nowadays? I'm a bit of an old-fashioned romantic that way."

"I think if you like someone, you should tell them."

"I do like you Janine, and I'm looking forward to getting to know you a bit better."

"Me too," she beamed, and her shoes clip-clopped on the pavement to punctuate the silence that followed.

As they reached the gate and prepared to go through, an official looking man in a black and red uniform came out of an ancient wooden door in the funny little guard tower. "Oi! Where do you think you're going without a ticket?"

Janine jumped at his voice and turned, startled, to Sherlock. But he just smiled. It took her a second to realise the two men were laughing at her.

"Nice one, Steve," Sherlock gave him a wink, "did you see that face?"

"Oh, you!" Janine punched Sherlock lightly on the arm. "You scared me half to death. I thought we were going to get in trouble."

"It broke the ice though, didn't it?" he beamed. "Janine, I'd like you to meet Steven Russell-Cox, he's one of the yeoman warders here. He's known me for… I-don't-know-how-long… Steve?"

"Oh, since he was knee high to a stoat," Steve doffed his bonnet and checked his long term memory, "about twenty-five years."

Sherlock explained, "I used to run away from boarding school and come here. Used to pretend I was an orphan and try to get people to adopt me."

"Bloody nuisance he was," Steve clapped him appreciatively on the back, "and still is now."

"You like me coming here, gives it more status," said Sherlock with faux indignation.

"A likely story," Steve laughed, "as long as you don't bring the wrong friends over to play. We've only just gotten over the aftermath of that flaming Moriarty bloke. You're not planning on stealing the crown jewels now, are y' darlin'?"

"I don't think they'd suit me," Janine smiled warmly, "but you're welcome to check my bag when I leave."

Ordinary sightseers were beginning to throng the entrance, so Sherlock guided her through the gate with a gentle hand on the small of her back. She liked that.

Steve called after them, "I'm doing a guided tour in about ten minutes. You and your, uh, friend are welcome to join."

"Thanks," said Sherlock, "we'd like that. As long as you - " he turned to Janine – "sorry, I don't mean to speak for you; if you wanted - "

"No, honestly." They positioned themselves ergonomically near one of the stone walls. "Whatever you want to do, you're in charge today. I'm just gonna - "

"Oh, right-oh."

"Can I just ask, though," she said as the sightseers began to fill up the area between the two guard towers, waiting for their tour-guide, "why the Tower of London?"

Sherlock shrugged, "you said wanted to do touristy things. I can't think of a better place to start than this. It was one of the most luxurious palaces in the world when it was built. All that history - "

"Palace, eh?"

"Yes. A palace. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"No reason," she smiled. She just loved watching him. Every tiny movement was so precise, so deliberate. He was so elegant, yet somehow untamed. She hoped it wasn't too obvious that she was snatching little glances when she thought he wouldn't notice. "What made you think I was into history?"

"Aren't you?"

"Yes, but you haven't answered the question."

"You'd be surprised what you give away without even saying a word." The way he lowered his voice to a purr and ducked down to her ear was almost indecent. The little courtyard was so full of visitors now, that it was getting quite uncomfortable.

"Mr Holmes, do you mean to say you've been deconstructing me like one of your clients?"

"If I wanted to do that, I would have done it the second we met. No, I didn't think that would be respectful, somehow. Anything I know about you, I want it to come from _you_."

They looked into each other's eyes for a moment. The crowd shifted as Steve made his way through with a long black staff in his hand.

"Right, ladies and gentlemen," the yeoman warder stood on a box, "if you'll follow me, I will begin my talk on the tower green."

The couple linked their arms once more and followed the crowd across the moat and up to the high walls of the medieval fortress. Janine couldn't help stealing one more look at her date's profile. She was going to get this man into bed if it was the last thing she ever did. And as they passed through the gates to the inner ward, she could already tell that her life would never be the same again.

* * *

"That was amazing," she said as they emerged from the Waterloo Block, "I had no idea they were so spectacular close up. The pictures just don't do them justice."

"As you probably realised, they don't let people get nearly as close any more. Not since… well, you-know-who."

"I think I liked the hundred litre punch bowl best. If I was going to steal any part of the crown jewels, it'd be that. So much more useful than a load of old crowns."

"Oh, _that_." Sherlock tried his damn hardest to seem amused. "You'd find it pretty hard to steal. It's made of two tons of silver. I guess that's why no-one's ever succeeded in stealing it. If I had to take one thing it'd be the samovar."

This was exhausting, listening to someone's inane drivel about their own life, nodding and smiling in all the right places, trying to seem like the perfect exploring companion. They'd done the chapel, the scaffold site, the chopping block, the traitor's gate, nearly everything there was to see. And at every single thing Steve had said, she'd been totally enthralled, making the most embarrassing excited noises and exclamations. She was insatiable. He wondered if she applied this same principle to everything in her life, but then he remembered her incessant cheer-leading at his violin solo and realised just what he'd gotten himself in to. Yes, she was certainly her very own brand of eccentric, to say the least. Every little thing that interested her brought forth a torrent of superlatives. If he heard the word 'amazing' one more time, he was going to scream, and if he was honest, it reminded him why he didn't spend 'time' with 'people'. However, the plan was working to a certain extent. She definitely 'fancied' him, or whatever it was people said. So far, so good. He may just be able to wangle it so as to go in for the kill sooner than expected.

"And Steve's just lovely," she continued, "he really knows his onions."

"He's lived here for nearly thirty years. They have their own community, a doctor, everything they'd need. It's like its own little kingdom."

"I had no idea it still technically functioned as an army base."

"Don't they teach you about all this stuff in Irish schools?" Sherlock teased.

Janine had a skip in her step as they returned to the green. "Why would they teach us about Britain? No, they teach us about Fionn mac Cumhaill and Tír na nÓg."

"Fairy-tales." He was careful to keep his voice neither scornful, nor uninterested.

"Vicious propaganda from a land without real heroes," she laughed, smoothing down her dress.

"Saint George."

"Saint George was Syrian."

"I stand corrected. Look at me; can't even tell a middle-eastern dragon-slayer when I see one. It's a British disease, you know; thinking every important historical figure is English. Jesus, King Arthur… Ghandi."

She laughed even more at that. Sherlock was rather pleased with himself.

They sat on one of the benches and she took out a small mirror and began to touch up her lipstick. _Oh God, why did she have to do that?_ It was distracting. On the surface, she _was_ mildly attractive, and her face was wonderfully symmetrical with well-defined features, even if she did often contort it with expressions of extreme curiosity, surprise and pleasure. If anything, the gurning served to enhance her individuality rather than detract from her beauty. Such an odd mélange of class and sophistication with the raw energy of someone who didn't care what others thought. She had etiquette, probably as a result of her job rather than upbringing, and she knew how to dress for her shape, which made enduring this job so much easier than it could have been. Even though she had a little too much stomach to pull off that dress, somehow it worked and the overall effect was rather fetching.

"Do you… like fairy-tales?" he ventured.

"My ma used to tell me stories about beautiful princesses and lecherous, half crazed kings - "

"Good old bedtime stories - "

"Before she died."

"Oh, I am sorry."

"It's fine, we're kinda over it now. They were Persian mostly, but she did know stories from all over the world. I remember this one fairy-tale she'd tell me before I went to sleep, but I can't remember for the life of me what it's called. It's always bugged me because I can't find it in any books."

"Why don't you try me?"

Ravens picked at the crumbs near their feet, their wings safely clipped. This stuff was good. She was letting him into her world without even realising it.

"It was about a princess whose father the king was obsessed with getting her into bed, of course - "

"Of course."

"And she had to keep asking for all these unrealistic presents before she'd marry him. Naturally, she didn't believe he could ever grant her requests. So first she asked for a dress the colour of the sky and then a dress the colour of the moon - "

"And then the colour of the sun, yes, I know this one. It's French. It's called _Peau d'Âne_. Donkey skin. She ends up escaping the castle dressed in the skin of an ass, while the servant dresses in her gold dress to fool the king."

"Yes! That's it! Oh, my God, you are a genius - "

"Not quite - "

Janine pounced on him and gave him a hug of gratitude which he was not prepared for, but somehow he managed to not make it seem awkward. When she let go he was careful to seem as joyful as she.

"You have no idea how long that's been bugging me."

"Well, I'm sure I can make an educated guess," he mumbled, unheard, as she ransacked her shoulder bag for a notebook and pen.

"Right," she finished writing with a flourish, "what shall we do next? I'm sure I saw a sign saying '_Torture_'."

Sherlock felt a pang of recognition when he saw the blaze of mischief in her eyes. "Yeah. Okay. Why not?"

* * *

Before long they found themselves in the torture chamber beneath the Bloody Tower. Sherlock had forgotten how narrow the access points were and how crowded it got in there during peak season. It was extremely hot and sticky. He took a moment to himself while Janine was absorbed in part of the exhibition.

_Breathe, just breathe,_ he reminded himself. _Come on, Old Chap, you've managed situations like this before._ In fact, he hadn't felt like this since that sweaty, disastrous, experimental night out with Victor during their second year at Uni, when he'd been on the come down from too much speed and holed up in the toilets with a severe anxiety attack. _Oh, shit._ He definitely wasn't starting to feel better. His heart rate remained elevated. He looked for a way out. All he saw was the crowd of witless, open-mouthed tourists herding themselves through the display of torture equipment. The walls seemed even higher and inescapable than ever before. He saw the iron maiden up against the central pillar. He saw Janine, oblivious to him, but looking oddly excited about the rack.

The rack.

_Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit..._ He thought he'd blocked it out. The situation started to escalate along with his pulse. This was one of his favourite places on earth. He'd been here hundreds of times. Why was it doing this to him?

Sherlock struggled to get enough oxygen as he was faced with a feeling he thought he'd never have to endure again. A place where he felt powerless and hopeless and in terrible pain. He felt the sting of the Serbian's knuckle-duster as if it was freshly inflicted. He was not prepared to be confronted with this-

_Got to get out - got to get air -_

Somehow he managed to push through the queue, and crashed out onto the quiet, rather cooler grass in the shadow of the Bloody Tower.

Green falling upwards was the last thing he remembered.

* * *

He heard the voices before he dared to open his eyes.

_"Maybe he's diabetic…"_ said one, an older man's voice, an American.

_"I saw it all,"_ said another, female this time, young, northerner, _"he came out of that door looking white as a sheet and just hit the deck…"_

_"Should we call an ambulance?"_

Gentle hands lifted his wrist, took his pulse and then turned his sleeve up, obviously looking for a medic-alert bracelet. They found none. Obviously.

Sherlock snapped awake with an involuntary snort and claimed back possession of his wrist. "Thank-you…" he murmured, "that's mine."

"Is he drunk?" said the unhelpful American.

"Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock said, as a middle-aged woman helped him into a sitting position. It was she who had checked his wrist. He recognised her as a St John's ambulance volunteer. "Oh God, I think I actually saw stars this time."

"I'm Sally, I'm a qualified first responder," she said, "can you tell me your name?"

She had so much compassion, it was sickening. "Sh - " he began and then rapidly changed his mind, where had all his aliases gone? Something wasn't right. Very not right. "William. My names William."

"Do you know where you are, William?" Sally knealt down beside him and shone a penlight in his eyes.

"Of course I do, you silly old dolt. Where's…?" he looked around for Janine. She was nowhere to be found. Thank God.

"Maybe he had a bump on the head," offered the American. Unhelpfully. "That can make 'em a bit fighty."

"I'm _fine_," Sherlock said, a little too emphatically, and tried to get to his feet, but he still felt rather wobbly. He sank into the grass again.

"Has this happened before?" Sally rummaged in her backpack and brought out an Accu-Chek blood glucose monitor. She'd grabbed his finger and pricked it before Sherlock had gathered the wherewithal to do anything about it. It was tantamount to an assault. She was getting a bit cocky for her own good, this 'qualified first responder', and now she was attempting to exsanguinate him. Unfortunately he still felt too weak and woozy to get away.

He wrenched his finger out of her grasp, "certainly not," but she'd still managed to get enough blood for an accurate reading. "I just had a momentary lapse in consciousness, that's all."

The young woman who said she'd seen him pass out came and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's all right you know, love, I've seen men faint at the sight of torture chambers before. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Yes, _thank_ you," he said derisively and brushed her hand off. _Honey, you have no idea. _Thankfully, she went away.

"Well I don't know if that constitutes normal where you come from," Sally passed him a little ball of cotton-wool for the blood that was beading on his forefinger, and sat down companionably on the grass, "but around here, healthy young men don't just faint for no reason. Your blood sugar is extremely low. When was the last time you had a proper meal?"

"Say, I've got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my fanny pack if you're interested," said the American, shielding his eyes from the mid-day sun.

"Look," said Sally to the few people who had gathered round, "could we just give him some space, please. I've got this under control."

They all shuffled off to go and do whatever it was they'd paid twenty-two pounds each to come here to do. Sally looked at him. She'd clearly seen it all before.

Sherlock had to think very carefully about when he'd last eaten. He took a pot-shot, "Saturday night?"

"It's Tuesday. For heaven's sake," she hissed discreetly, "what are you trying to do, kill yourself?"

"Look, I very much appreciate your concern, and you've done your job, or your volunteering, or whatever you think it is, very admirably, but it's absolutely none of your business."

"Alright," Sally held up her hands, "I know when I've gone too far, but I think you've been a very silly young man."

Sherlock scoffed and looked down thoughtfully. He was beginning to feel like he was getting his strength back now. He never bothered to try to explain to people that his job required him to push himself to the limit. They were all like John, clucking around like mother hen. "I don't expect you to understand."

Sally produced a roll of cherry-drops from her gilet pocket and offered him one. He took it. "Just promise me you'll eat lunch, Okay. Imagine how this is going to look in the log book if I treat you and let you go, and then you drop dead in the armoury."

"The armoury? Of course, we haven't visited the armoury yet. She's going to love it." Sherlock's words were garbled a bit by the boiled sweet. "I think I can get up now."

"I'll steady you. Oops-a-daisy."

_How delightfully trite. Certainly, feel free to treat me like a small child, as I've already suffered the indignity of displaying my weakness to all and sundry in a public place._

As they brushed themselves off, Sherlock said, "please don't tell my girlfriend. We're not quite at that stage in our relationship yet. She'd only worry unnecessarily."

"On one condition. That you take proper care of yourself and get some bloody help. Consider this a wake-up call."

"Wilco General," he said with a mock salute, but Sally noticed his eyes shift to the young woman at the torture chamber entrance.

"Does she know you have an eating disorder?"

Sherlock stared at her then, not quite recovered enough to formulate a clever answer to such a penetrating question. Her words hung uncomfortably in the humid air. She'd said the blasted E-D word. At least she didn't say the dreaded A-word. At last he was saved by the bell, or rather Janine, bounding up and hanging affectionately onto his arm.

"I thought I'd lost you!" she enthused in that infectious brogue. "It was like a cattle market in there."

"I was just catching up with an old friend," he lied, careful not to make eye contact. "Janine, this is Sally. Sally and I go way back. Say 'hello' Sally."

"Hello Sally!" Sally played along perfectly, and the two women shook hands, laughing at the lame joke.

_Oh, the hilarity._ Sherlock couldn't stand much more of this. "Come along dear, I've yet to show you the most interesting bit of all."

"Nice to meet you Sally," said Janine and off they went toward the White Tower, the looming medieval palace that was, for Sherlock anyway, the main attraction.

Sherlock glanced back at Sally with a ghost-smile of reluctant thanks for not outing him, and an almost-promise to behave. She just winked, picked up her things, and carried on with her life, probably never knowing who she'd met that day.

* * *

"Wow…" Janine turned around and around, as she tried to assimilate the splendour of the armoury. "This is simply _amazing._"

"I've always liked this one," said Sherlock, lightly stroking a glass case.

"A combination axe and pistol. Nice. I wonder why they don't still use those today."

"Because they're damned awkward in battle. Hack, shoot, hack, shoot... doesn't really work, does it? In fact it'd make anyone attacking you look like a right twat. Very hard to take your enemy seriously with one of those."

"I think its more of a mid-life crisis, you know, like those men who buy Porsches as a penis extension."

"This is actually a collection of weapons handed to the monarchy as diplomatic gifts throughout the ages. Makes you wonder what kind of a message they were trying to send."

They walked past row upon row of exquisite swords and armour.

"This is not at all what I was expecting. In movies the props look so dull. But here you can actually see the workmanship. I can scarcely believe it was possible to make something so refined, so beautiful."

"Indeed," he said, looking at her lips, her eyes, rather pointedly. But she didn't notice.

They moved on.

"And this is Henry the eighth's personal suit of armour. As you can see, he thought an awful lot of himself."

"My, my, that has got to be the most ridiculously proportioned cod-piece I have ever seen. Do you think they were exaggerating?"

"Oh, no. I'm told it really was that big. And most probably syphilitic. So glad you're enjoying yourself."

"Interesting. You do seem to know a lot about this stuff," she said suspiciously.

"I used to come here a lot, you know."

"You said."

"Sorry, am I boring you?"

"Not at all. I love hearing about your childhood. In fact, I'd like to know more. What did you always want to be when you grew up? I bet you didn't plan on being a detective."

"You're right. I didn't. I didn't plan on being a scientist either, but look what happened."

"No-one just falls into chemistry, though, do they?"

"Unless they trip and land in a huge vat of carboxymethylcellulose." _Nailed it._

"Very droll." But she didn't really laugh at that one. "Come on, there must have been something. Fireman? Chocolate tester? Everyone has a stupidly unrealistic childhood ambition."

"I'd really rather not say."

"Oh, come on, spoil-sport."

At that moment, she just looked so darn sweet, that he decided to throw caution to the wind and take a huge, huge risk. It was little too soon to make a move after all. Maybe he was a little shaken up by the episode in the torture chamber, maybe first-aid Sally had got him riled up, or maybe it was Saturday night slash Sunday morning, but he needed to prove to himself that he still had his powers. He took her by the waist and pulled her close, as if they were dancing, and whispered in her ear, so close that he could perceive the beat of her heart, _"I wanted to meet people like you."_

By gosh did it work. The effect was so subtle, so imperceptible, or would have been to the untrained observer, that they themselves didn't fully comprehend quite what had happened. But as he held her, as her dark hair brushed his cheek and the scent of Yves Saint Laurent Opium washed over his senses, he knew by the dilation of her pupils and the flutter of her pulse that he _had_ her. The knowledge that his plan had worked, so quickly and so well, took him by surprise and he faltered and dipped her ever-so slightly, and that broke the spell.

He recovered and let her go.

She righted herself and unconvincingly brushed off the moment they'd shared as if nothing had happened, but he knew, he _knew_ that she was putty in his hands. And boy, did he feel like a total shit because of it.

She wandered away and continued to peruse the display cases. "So what was it?"

He caught up. "What was what?"

"What made you get into this?"

"It was my friend Victor actually."

"You have a friend?" She pretended to be surprised. _Cute._

They came upon a beautifully appointed display of hand guns. Some encrusted with mother-of-pearl, others diamonds. _How incredibly practical._

"Why would the queen need a Tiffany branded Friday night special?" Janine wondered aloud.

"Actually he's not my friend any more, but I'm getting to that. We met in fresher's week at Cambridge. The first day in fact. My parents wanted me to share digs because they thought it'd bring me out of my shell."

"You had a shell?" She squished herself up against one of the huge limestone fire-places, so as to let the crowds pass.

He could tell she was tiring slightly, overwhelmed probably. He joined her. The cool stone was a relief. "Like a veritable testudine. Anyway, I'm holding all these boxes on my way up to the room, and this highland terrier just races out of the door and bites me on the... upper thigh."

"It bit you on the bum, didn't it? It's Okay, I won't tell anyone." She hid her mirth behind one hand. "Sorry, I shouldn't laugh, it must have been horrible."

"It was. I ended up in hospital. Can you imagine the teasing? Hospitalised on the first day. Victor was, however, sincerely apologetic and because of that little incident I got the better of the two beds."

"And what happened to the dog?"

"Chalkie? Oh, he'd just come with Victor's father to settle him in and wasn't allowed to stay, obviously, which I have to say was quite a relief. But he does come back into the story later."

"That still doesn't explain how you became a detective."

"We became great friends. I think Victor was the only person who ever really understood me. We were in the same boat, you see. He was studying theoretical physics and I was studying chemical engineering... which is beside the point. It was near the end of our third year, when he confided one night that his father was behaving rather strangely. That Easter, they'd received a visit from one of Mr Trevor's ex-girlfriends. Mrs Trevor, Victor's mother, was dead. That's a story all of it's own, but I shan't tell it now. Trevor senior was a local figure, a magistrate and a notorious womaniser, but that didn't explain the influence this woman seemed to have on him. Victor had to watch helplessly as she moved herself in and took over their lives. She began to spend all of poor old Trevor's money, held extravagant parties that went on for days and even started to change things about the house, landscaping the gardens and replacing all the antiques. It was a big house too. A manor up in Norfolk. Old Trevor took to the drink and seemed to just roll over and let her get on with ruining his life."

"She sounds like an absolute nightmare."

"Gloria Scott was her name. An absolute old-school bombshell. Victor couldn't stand her."

"What did he do? Victor, I mean."

"The only thing he could do. They needed help, that was for sure. He invited me to stay for the summer, to see if he wasn't imagining things, maybe confront Ms Scott as an impartial third party, but more especially to try and get to the bottom of the whole thing. He knew that I already had a keen interest in con-artists, prestidigitation, debunking magicians, that sort of thing. I was the only person he could trust. Oh, it was wonderful, Janine... the thrill of the chase, the blood pumping through my veins, buried treasure and intrigue... nothing would ever be the same again."

"So, go on, tell me. Who was this mysterious woman?"

"Gangster's moll. She was blackmailing him. To cut a long story short, he turned out to be one of the great train robbers."

"Oh, my _God_." Her eyes grew wide and her bracelets jangled as she gripped the stone wall for support.

"I know. Victor had no idea that's where all his dad's money came from. This woman had gotten fed up of lying low and decided to capitalise on the gang members one by one."

"That is the craziest thing I've ever heard. Poor Victor, he must have been absolutely devastated."

"He was in denial for a time while we figured out what to do. Eventually I called the police, showed them all the evidence. Victor was absolutely livid, but what could I do? This guy had stashed a trainload of gold bullion under his patio, and he'd killed people to get it there. They were probably buried under the patio too. CID came to arrest old Trevor and he was so shocked that he had a heart attack and died, right there in Victor's arms."

"You're kidding me. Sherlock... you killed your best friend's dad."

"Not exactly. The truth was going to come out eventually. He did it to himself."

"But poor Victor, he lost his father, his house and his inheritance..."

"And that is why he's never spoken to me again. Dropped out before graduation, buggered off to India with some woman."

_Aw, poor wickle Sherlock, abandoned for a girl. Again._

Janine exhaled, taking it all in. He might have laid it on a bit thick with the whole Victor story, but he had to feed her something verifiable that she could use as a basis for trusting him.

"That is some story."

"You did ask."

"Yes, I suppose I asked for that."

"My one regret in all of this was that the dog ended up in the RSPCA shelter."

"You didn't think to take it on yourself?"

"I would have, but it hated me, you see. Hated me from the start. Every time it saw my backside it just started licking its lips."

Janine stared at him for a moment, screwing up her mouth, unsure how to react, and then they both burst out laughing.

* * *

"Well," Sherlock said as they walked briskly away from the Tower gates, "what did you make of that?"

"Absolutely magnificent. It'll be a hard act to follow. But I'm starving now, it's getting on for two."

"Just one more thing before we get out of here. Trust me, I think you'll like this."

He took her by the hand - _dear God, are we actually holding hands?_ \- and lead her toward the church of All Hallows.

* * *

"Where are you taking me?" Janine whispered, surprised by the sudden change in atmosphere. It was so much cooler in the deserted vestibule, but somehow stuffier, and it smelled of old wood and paper. She very carefully held onto her can of orange so as to not spill it in a place of worship. This felt like sacrilege, really, that she'd come here with a man she was planning to shag.

"You'll see."

This was exactly the kind of place her mother always told her not to go with strange men. _That is how girls end up dead_, she used to say.

"You're not religious, are you?"

Sherlock pushed open a door marked '_Crypt_' in fading, hand-painted gold lettering. "Not in the slightest. You?"

"Nor me. I don't think I've ever even set foot in a church. Except maybe when I was a wee baby."

"I make it a point never to discuss politics or religion in polite company. Or in impolite company for that matter."

"That's fine by me."

In this next little room was a narrow set of stairs. "Ladies first."

_He'd better not be taking me down here to kill me,_ Janine thought_._

The stairs got narrower as one descended, about twenty feet in all, far below street level, and beyond hearing distance of ones cries for help, but Janine could just make out the light at the end of the tunnel. She might be stabbed and no-one would ever know. Kinky. She scolded herself for the sick fantasy, looking back up at Sherlock and relishing the fact that he had no idea what she was thinking. So far he'd played everything right, so right, in fact, that it had caught her off-guard and before she knew what she was doing she was playing along and getting lost in the moment. Dear God, he was sexy. But the best thing was; he didn't even know it. He was desperate to please her, she could tell, and it would have been a bit sad and pathetic if he wasn't such a master at manipulating her senses. Other men suddenly seemed so lewd and overt in comparison. Sherlock had old-school charm; he knew how to seduce her, but he did it with restraint. It only left her wanting more. Apparently he didn't really date much. Such a waste.

Suddenly the floor levelled out and they were in a much bigger chamber, lit with ageing fluorescent bulbs in little cages. Along the wall were individual tiles and tiny plaques explaining what the tiles were. It was like a strange little hobbyist's wet dream.

"Go ahead," said Sherlock, urging her on through the corridor.

She read one of the plaques and gasped. "These tiles are from the thirteenth century. This pattern comes from Iran. How did it get here? That's amazing."

"It gets better. Look here."

Next there was a recess in the wall, about the size of a modern sitting room, but cordoned off with iron railings. Janine looked down, "oh, my God."

"An actual Roman kitchen floor. I think that bit is where they did the washing up."

She smiled up at him, "thank-you, Sherlock, this is so wonderful."

_Kill me, kill me now._

"Keep going," he urged.

He pointed out all the interesting little curiosities, including a river of molten lead petrified in place from when the place had been struck by lighting. What a gem this place was. People walked past on their way to the Tower never knowing what was down here. She felt like she'd been lead to another world, _his_ world; London-below, where everything was twisted and strange and delightfully morbid.

"Don't people ever come down here? Why is it so empty?"

"Up there is their time, but down here, down here it's our time."

"Oh my God... I knew it!" she gave him an affectionate dig in the ribs.

He looked slightly embarrassed. "What?"

"You're a... you're a _goonie_!"

"Alright," he held up his hands in surrender, "you got me. When I was a kid, I wanted to find treasure. That was my ambition. I was going to be One-eyed Willie. Only with two eyes."

Around the corner were more quirky exhibits, an anchor, for some reason, a barrel that had served as the crow's nest on Scott's Antarctic expedition, and beyond those, a kind of chapel, lined with sarcophagi. "Are those dead people?"

"Yep," he said, almost proudly. "Each one of those alabaster boxes holds one human being. Hard to believe an entire person could fit in there, but there's an awful lot of dehydration during the embalming process. Also, they tend to decapitate them and put the head down by the feet."

One of the boxes was a lot smaller than the others. A child. Janine tried very hard not to notice that the dates said b. 23/09/1976 and d. 23/09/1976. She changed the subject. "You really know how to sweet talk a girl, don't you?"

"I can't say I meet many women who are so turned on by ancient history."

"Well, I did my degree in it," she said almost apologetically, putting her half empty can down on the wooden barrel, "you've got to do something you love, otherwise what's the point? Can't say it's that useful in everyday life, though."

"Which brings me to the point; you haven't told me your side of the story yet. What makes a person want to be a professional PA? Do little girls dream of sitting in an office with toy Rolodexes and telephone headsets?"

She laughed, "no, I got into it quite by accident really. I started off being a teacher - "

"A _teacher_?" He looked so fecking gorgeous when he was incredulous. "I hope you're not going to place me in detention."

"Don't look so surprised," she continued as he leaned on the wall behind her head, _oh, hello_, "it didn't last long anyway; took me about two weeks to figure out that I actually hate kids."

"You _hate_ kids?" Sherlock scoffed, "you get better by the second."

"You'd understand if you were ever in charge of a classroom full of the little gobshites."

This seemed to amuse him no end, so she continued, "honestly, anyone who's considering having kids should be locked in a room and told to do their tax return while a dozen six-year-olds jump up and down on their kidneys."

"I take it you don't want any kids of your own, then."

"You'd be surprised how many men find that's a problem."

"Ah," he placed his hand on his chest, "what's the _bon mot_ in this situation?_ Il n'y a pas tellement de confort à avoir des enfants, car il est chagrin dans la séparation avec eux._"

"What?"

"Oh, sorry, you don't speak French - "

"Another thing that's not so hot in Irish schools, I'm afraid."

"Shame," he leaned in closer, almost seductively, "because everything sounds so much more romantic in French. _Vos verbosité masque votre insécurité. Vos promiscuité masque votre névrose parentale. Vous dupe les gens intelligemment, de sorte qu'ils pensent que vous êtes plus intelligent que vous êtes vraiment, et vous êtes en surpoids de 10 kilos. Maintenant que nous avons surmonté cet obstacle; nous pouvons commencer par la séduction et la tromperie résultant."_

The air almost vibrated with tension, she really needed him to take her soon. "I got nothing."

He laughed.

She took a chance; "but I do understand chemistry. This sort of chemistry."

Their eyes met in the kind of long, brave stare you don't want to spoil by speaking. _Don't be the first to look away,_ she told herself, _he's probably used to winning. _She found herself drawn into his gravitational pull, like that freckle in orbit around his right pupil, or the electrons around a nucleus. She didn't want to be in someone else's orbit, but she couldn't help herself.

Suddenly, he pulled her into one of the rocky little side annexes; a tiny chapel complete with primitive altar. There was barely enough room for two people to stand. They were alone, but she couldn't help feeling they were offending someone's ghost. Her heart thumped in her breast.

"I think I understand why you wanted to study it now," she blinked.

He cleared his throat and tenderly brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers. She didn't flinch. She wanted this. The strong, cool hand moved to the back of her head and cradled her skull, digits tangled in her tresses. With the other hand he propped up the wall of the dank chamber, totally dominating. His breath carried the aroma of the candy he was chewing earlier. "You know," he said, "everything comes down to chemistry. Quantum chemistry teaches us that matter is just an illusion. Atoms occupy a position in space governed only by the mathematical probability of their distribution. Ergo; nothing... is... ever... really... touching..."

He went in for the kill.

In that second, in the centimetre between their faces, there was an infinitesimal space as big as a universe and just as complex. If their lips touched, would they really be touching or would they be bound by the laws of physics, unable to connect until the end of all things?

They crashed together and it was -

_Breathtaking._

Their lips touched but she didn't feel it in her lips, she felt it in the pit of her stomach, in her heart and in her soul. It was a deep connection like the rocks of the earth or the roots of a tree. They bumped teeth gently in the midst of the passion. She felt the turning of the earth. It was just one of those things; they were so similar and the manner of their meeting was so serendipitous, it was like one of those fixed points in time and space where everything just falls into place.

He finally released her from the kiss.

She swayed slightly and opened her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me," Sherlock said, taking a step back, "I shouldn't have done that."

"No, no," she thoughtfully touched her own lips, "it was fine. It was more than fine."

She hadn't been expecting that, for it to feel like something real, not just one of her flirtations. For Janine, not even sex was that intimate, but here she was, feeling like he'd always been in her life and always would be, and they had only spent one day together.

"It's just - " she tasted blood where she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.

"Was it too hard? Did I hurt you? I'm afraid I'm a little out of practice - "

"You did great. It's just... never been like that before."

_Destroyed by lightning._

They stared at each other for a second longer, trying to compute what had just happened, until a lopsided smile broke through. "That _was_ pretty raunchy, wasn't it?" he said.

"Sacrilegious. Why, Mr Holmes, I do believe you are blushing."

He swallowed thickly, but she couldn't tell what he was thinking. Finally he spoke, "shall we go? I was thinking maybe afternoon tea at the Langham..."

"That would be delightful."

He showed the way and they ascended by a different set of stairs. Janine couldn't stop smiling all the way up, and when they stopped by the door to leave a guilt offering in the donation box, a priest crossed their path and gave her a funny look. She just beamed innocently as Sherlock re-folded his wallet and donned sunglasses. She'd forgotten it was a sunny day while they'd been down in the belly of the earth doing unspeakable things.

"Oh," she said as they skipped down the steps back onto the bustling street, "I left my can of Orangina in the crypt."

"Pretty sure that's the only time anyone has ever said that particular sentence. Don't worry. It'll probably give the vicar a thrill."

He took her hand once more and it somehow felt very comfortable in his much larger, stronger one. _Yeah,_ it felt right.

"Sherlock."

"Hmmm?"

"Do you realise you just chatted up a girl using science?"

* * *

**Well, that was long, wasn't it? Glad I got that off my chest. Extra credit for those who manage to translate the French portion of the text. Not everything is what it seems! Be sure to leave a note if you enjoyed this... Reviews make the world go round! (In your face, John 'the earth goes round the sun' Watson.) 'Til next time, L ;-)**


	6. Coeur Révélateur

**_COEUR RÉVÉLATEUR_**

* * *

_"Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts."_

_~Charles Dickens~_

* * *

_Wednesday 14th August 2013_

* * *

Behind the closed doors, naturally, Charles and Cornelius were locked in a spat about the story they wanted to pull from the Global News website. The doors didn't stop Janine eavesdropping, though. She pressed her ear up against the window, hidden by closed shutters. Apparently there was a conflict of interest involving the public enquiry into Charlie's political influence. Cornelius was a hypocrite and Charles was no better. They were both as bent as a bottle o' chips as far as she was concerned.

Kayleigh was manning the phone. She looked over scornfully.

"You'll have to learn how to work him sooner or later," Janine said in justification, straightening up, "there'll come a time when he'll need something from you and you'll have nothing to bargain with."

"I'd rather it didn't come to that," Kayleigh tapped her keyboard.

"You might not have a choice. No-one is safe."

"Why do you stay then?"

"I like going to all those black tie events. Increases my exposure to eligible men. It wouldn't do to cut off my lifeline just yet. I have to wait until I meet someone who's rich enough and who's actually interested in me."

"Not that you could bed 'em right under the bastard's nose," said Kayleigh.

Janine sighed and resumed her summary of Charlie's schedule. She really didn't want to come in to work today. She was getting used to having all this time off, but she couldn't leave Kay alone with him for too long, otherwise he might start treating her like he did his long-suffering PA. Kay didn't deserve that. To survive Charles Magnussen you had to be as shrewd and ruthless as he was; you had to be prepared to produce the goods when your reputation was on the line. That was why she spied on him relentlessly.

No, what she'd rather be doing was sitting at home, curled up on the sofa, reliving…

Reliving yesterday's kiss.

She smiled involuntarily at the memory. It took all her self-discipline to avoid touching her lips. She licked them slightly, savouring the spectre of his pressure on her mouth. Was she just being silly? It couldn't have been that good, could it? She didn't kiss them; that was the first rule. At least, she didn't usually kiss them like _that;_ preferring to keep the intimate stuff for someone who was once in a lifetime special. She had to have something for herself; there was no use throwing pearls to swine.

She had been greatly surprised by the kiss and greatly unsettled. Okay, so it was Sherlock who made the first move by calling, but she hadn't counted on him to want, or even be able to seduce someone like that. Even more thrilling; he did it with the same passion and fire that he applied to catching killers. But at the same time, he was the perfect gentleman; he even kissed her hand before putting her in a cab home.

She'd been seduced before, of course, but she'd never been _romanced_.

This sort of thing just didn't happen in real life. She'd known him for four days. They'd actually only spent two of those together. This was moving way too fast for her comfort and it had already gone too far. Janine wouldn't ordinarily let someone get so close so quickly, and the fact that she had let it happen so easily scared her. Maybe she'd better nip this in the bud before it got out of hand. It was only one kiss; there was still time to walk away. Trouble was; she didn't want to.

_What have you done to me, Mr Holmes?_

"What's the matter with you?" Kayleigh's voice brought her back to reality.

She'd been staring into space; the paperwork lying limp in her hand. "I, um," Janine composed herself, "I was just thinking about someone I… met."

"Ooh," Kayleigh abandoned her work, "a man?"

"Yes, he did happen to be a man actually. But seeing as I meet hundreds of new people every week, it wasn't all that interesting."

"You haven't stopped smiling like an idiot since you got in."

Janine screwed up her mouth. "It's none of your business, anyway."

"Then why did you start by telling me you met someone? Come on, you want to tell me. Otherwise you would have said you were thinking about a joke or something."

Janine smiled again in spite of herself, trying to keep her mouth under control, but it was no use; every time she thought of Sherlock, she grinned like a lovesick teenager. "It's a guy I met at that wedding," she lowered her voice, looking over her shoulder at Charlie's office door, "a very hot, geeky, _crazy_ guy."

Kayleigh rested her chin on her hands on the desk, really getting into it. "And? I need to know all the sordid details, Janine. Fit in as much as you can before the phone rings again."

"You mustn't tell anyone." God knows why she was doing this. Dating was a bit taboo in this office; if Charles thought she was going to go off and, God forbid, actually get on with her life, he'd do everything within his power to stop her leaving.

"I won't tell a soul."

"He's tall, he's gorgeous, he's got these incredible blue eyes… he's so smart he makes Gary Kasparov look like Joey Essex," Janine stopped, "and that's about all you're going to get for now."

"Oh, you're so cruel," Kayleigh whined, "at least tell me what he does for a living."

"He's," Janine hesitated, "a musician." _Well, it's true._

"Young, old?"

"Thirty two. I think. Same as me - "

"Ooh, he sounds perfect. Are you going to see him again?"

Janine played it cool. "I might."

"You've got to promise to give me all the goss - "

"Just get on with something will you," Janine looked at the door again, "Cornelius is going to come out of that door any second and Charles is going to be pissed. I've barely got enough time to answer all the mail this morning, let alone stand around gossiping with you."

"Tell me what I can do to help."

"Stay on the phone. Just field everyone until I've got my arse in gear." She finished by muttering, "I swear I've gotten lazy over the last week."

* * *

Later, when she'd managed to grab a moment to herself, she took her phone out of her bag and turned it around and around, procrastinating a text to 'Global Communications'. What on earth should she say? The usual stuff just didn't apply here. What _was_ the usual stuff, anyway? _Nice shag, see you later?_

Finally she settled on something ambiguous and lightly humorous.

**_Hope you've recovered from that little cake-splosion. J._**

He replied almost immediately;

**_It's taken almost 24 hours but I think I'm over the worst of the hyperglycaemia. S._**

Janine was surprised at how happy it made her to get a response. She fired off;

**_Breaking my own three day-rule by texting you. Did have a wonderful time, tho._**

He texted back;

**_So did I. When can I see you again?_**

She;

**_Didn't anyone ever tell you to 'play hard to get'?_**

He;

**_Never heard of it. Come to my place on Friday evening at 8._**

**_How do you know I'll be free on Friday?_**

**_I made a deduction. Bring a pint of milk and a deck of cards._**

**_You're on. Don't meet any more pretty girls before I get there._**

**_As if I would do that._**

**_Have a good day, Sherl._**

**_You too. X_**

* * *

Sherlock put his phone away.

_Sherl?_ What the deuce? Were they using diminutives now? Or was that just how people texted each other, too lazy to spell people's names out?

The X might have been a step too far, but if he'd scared her off with his ardency, he would soon find out when she didn't show up on Friday. If she knew what he was doing right now, she really wouldn't show up on Friday.

He pulled the hood further down over his eyes. It was a warmish day but he'd dressed for stealth rather than comfort, in trainers, a slouchy pair of sweats and a casual jacket his dad had left behind last time he visited.

As he walked along John and Mary's road, he analysed yesterday's date with Janine and reflected on the fact that he still felt nauseous from the afternoon tea. Scones and prosecco were no way to break a fast.

He'd been surprised that, after he'd gotten used to her insistence upon speaking almost constantly, he'd come to rather enjoy Janine's company. The wit and intelligence that had only been hinted to at the wedding, had come into full bloom, and as the afternoon wore on, he'd found himself warming to her more and more. There was nothing significant about Magnussen yet, but that didn't matter; they were still in the getting-to-know-you phase after all.

She was like a pin-up, a brunette bombshell in the most traditional sense, crashing into his life and filling it with penetrating questions, curves and lips and huge brown eyes. She was not unlike the forces of nature that dominated Hollywood in the first half of the twentieth century; Jane Russell, Rita Hayworth, or Sofia Loren. She would definitely have been the femme fatal in the story, yet she could never have been reduced to a mere doxy. Too potent for that, too larger-than-life. She would have had top billing.

He'd found out that she had an older brother, Cyrus, and a sister, Mairead. They didn't get along. She wasn't much cop at French, but she was fluent in both Gaelic and Farsi which lead to her working for an obscure TV channel for a while after quitting the teacher training. She'd also had a go at working in PR in Ireland before moving to the UK to run a help-desk for a large international financial information agency. It was there that she decided she wanted a change of scene and responded to the ad for CAM. She'd had many interesting boyfriends and many adventures, including getting caught up in a one-time lover's property scam. She was astute. She wasn't obtuse. She might have made a useful ally under any other circumstances. Such a shame he was going to ruin her life.

It was only the same thing that everyone else was doing; deceiving someone, pretending to be kind and undamaged to trying and get the other person into bed. Was there really any difference between courting someone for information and courting them to fulfil your own sexual desires? But with him there was one crucial difference. He wasn't going to sleep with her. So in a way it was more noble and honest than whatever the average man did.

_Yeah, keep on kidding yourself, Old Chap._

Up to the moment he'd drawn Janine to him in the crypt, he'd been focussed, ruthlessly efficient, but when they'd touched…

It was like he'd recognised someone he'd known all his life and hadn't seen for a long time. His commitment had wavered slightly, like he was betraying a dear friend. He'd shaken it off almost instantly, but she had lost her cool and seemed ruffled, stunned even. She was speechless, and she was someone who was well versed in this kind of thing. Maybe he was good at this romance business, after all.

_Quite disturbing._

Against his better judgement, he resurrected the kiss. He'd designed it to seduce her, calculating the exact amount of pressure needed to illicit the desired response, but it works both ways, and he hadn't realised he'd be seducing himself as well.

He mentally kicked himself.

Research showed that the emotional effects of kissing, being close to someone, could create a deep psychological and hormonal bond. After all, touch was crucial to the development of the human spirit, evidence of the fact that he was never held as a child.

Tactile physical affection was also highly correlated with creating and strengthening romantic relationships. Conversely, unwanted touch could do great harm. Touch on the face was considered particularly inappropriate and harassing behaviour. It was impossible to turn touching someone into a cold clinical exercise; they were all programmed to want the person they were touching.

And Sherlock was not immune.

He'd have to watch that. There was still so much to do; if he didn't get himself under control quickly it would be a catastrophe. He reassured himself; he didn't 'like' her, it was just a pre-programmed biological response to the external stimuli.

But there was another time that had happened. There was a time he'd met a man and they'd moved in together exactly one day after first laying eyes on each other. His subconscious was taunting him again, reminding him that he was human and he needed people and that he wasn't so cold and calculating after all–

Anyway, he couldn't think about it now; he put Janine back in her box in the attic. Analysing everything hadn't made it any clearer. He needed to focus on the task at hand.

Skulking round the back alley of John and Mary's terrace, he climbed over the fence. Considering John's knowledge of crime, it was surprising that he left the spare key in such a trivial place as the gutter on the shed roof. It was only the second place Sherlock had looked, the other being under a terracotta pot containing a small acer tree.

He tutted as he crossed the lawn. The grass needed cutting. _Letting things slip, John._

Within seconds, he'd let himself in and crossed to the fridge to check for left-overs. Nothing significant except a litre of milk, stiff and green in the door shelf. His stomach roiled again. It was probably a mercy that there was nothing to eat, yet First-aid Sally's warning/threat was still fresh in his mind.

Impulsively he tipped the milk down the sink and washed it away with water. It wouldn't do for them to come home to that.

After that, he made his way to the front room to ransack the couple's DVD collection for titles from the Smith's girl's list. He took _Shall We Dance _and _Steel Magnolias_ out of their cases and slipped them into the inside pocket of his dad's jacket. Then he popped the empty cases back where they came from.

_Hmmm,_ that was strange. Where were the gifts? Greg must have held onto them. Probably the best option considering the ease with which he'd broken in.

He left by the front door and didn't replace the spare key, just to freak John out. As he jumped down the three steps he noticed the next door neighbour's smack-head son come out of his own door. What was his name? Isaiah or something vaguely biblical. He could never understand why people bothered with names. It was hardly of crucial importance. They should have numbers, based upon an algorithm, incorporating their relative function in society.

"Hey," Sherlock said, jutting his chin in acknowledgement. An idea struck him. "It's I – Isaac, isn't it?"

"Oh, hullo, Mr Holmes." The teenager's face was sullen. He'd had a bad night and an argument with his mum. They both stopped by the sheer force of listless ennui and hung in the street.

Sherlock reached into his jacket pocket. "You haven't got a light, have you?"

He proffered the packet of Embassy Number Ones. Isaac produced a lighter but took the cigarette and secreted it away rather than lighting up.

Sherlock leaned on John and Mary's front wall and smoked thoughtfully. After a perfectly dejected moment in which Isaac kicked the dust around, he said, "Isaac, maybe you can help me with something."

"Yeah, what's that?" Isaac squinted into the sun.

"Where do people go to shoot up around here?"

* * *

Sherlock had four and a half vials of the hydromorphone left.

He would use the odd half today, and there was a whole one for each week of the case. Then he would call it a day before things started to escalate. He'd figured on one week for him and Janine to get to know each other well enough to kiss. Tick that one off the list. Another three weeks of dating in which he would feed her information about himself that left him vulnerable to exploitation, which would make him easier to trust. And in the final week, he would go into phase three; testing the strength of their connection by causing some kind of calamity or argument. If she came back after that then he knew it was safe to go ahead with the plan. If at any point she sold his story to her boss or didn't come back after the fight, he would still have a week to come up with another plan.

Something was scrawled on the wall in black spray-paint.

_**H**otEl **P**a**rA**dI**s****o** **-** **W**el**C**o**mE** 2 H**eL**_**L**

_How charming._

Sherlock followed Isaac through the drifts of litter to the side door of the house. It was actually less of a 'house', which implied home, and more decaying lego. It had been converted into a textile factory in the sixties, then abandoned sometime during the eighties and left to fester. At least that is what he gathered from the evidence around him. How it got there was less important than what it was used for now; a void that sucked in the scatterlings and wastrels of the universe, the unwanted and the unclean.

Isaac knocked on the door, slowly and deliberately. "It's 'cause the cops knock so quickly, you know, hard and fast. Before they batter it in, like."

The door creaked open and a thirty year-old man with cow-licked hair stood in their way. His clothes had seen better times, but the hairstyle, amongst other things, indicated that he'd had a job interview sometime in the last few days and failed it, not bothering to fix the cow-lick when he rose from whatever come-down induced slumber had assuaged the disappointment. "Alright Isaac, who's the nix?"

"S'alright Bill, he's one of us." Isaac pushed through the gap in the door and into the ramshackle hallway and nodded to each as an introduction, "Billy, Sherlock."

Sherlock followed Isaac in but Billy's shoulder pressed into him belligerently, preventing him from getting through the door. Sherlock rolled his eyes. Was he really going to have to submit to this joker? He supposed he'd have to if he wanted the plan to go smoothly. Billy spoke close to Sherlock's ear, almost threatening; "that's not your coat."

Sherlock looked at him. Good observational skills. The shoulders were faded in the wrong place to belong to Sherlock's form. "I stole it," he said.

"I dunno, smells like a cop to me."

Sherlock finally pushed through into the hall, imitating Billy's voice, "I dunno, do undercover cops crank up shit like this?" He produced the glass vial and the kit from his coat pocket. It made him cringe with dismay to hear himself use such uncouth language; he was _not_ one of them, as Isaac had so eloquently put it.

"That could be anything. S'not necessarily what it says on the tin. I've seen PC Plod mainlining water to get in on the scene. But, um, if that is real, don't let anyone see it, they'll 'ave it off you quick as anything."

"Scout's honour. Anyway, would a cop have this?" He produced Greg Lestrade's purloined ID card.

"Yes, he would actually," Billy said, matter of factly.

"But look at it," Sherlock took a glance at the card, "that's not me. Why else would I half inch a cop's badge?"

Billy looked closer, "he might've given it to you."

"And I just thought the best way to prove I wasn't a cop was to show a cop's badge that I borrowed off my cop mate?"

"Now that you mention it, it is perfectly logical." Billy took a step back and contorted his thin lips. "But see, this is Darkside's patch - "

"Darkside?" Sherlock scoffed, "is that someone's actual name?"

"Darkside's patch and if you've come here, sniffing around, trying to poach his customers, I'd better warn you right now. He ain't gonna be a happy bunny." Billy had a peculiar inflection to his voice, like he was upper class and had taken a very long fall, or he was scum trying to raise himself up, unsuccessfully, to the higher echelons of Received Pronunciation. Sherlock decided it was the latter. He occasionally slurred like he was burned out from too much E, and Sherlock reasoned that was his thing, but it was sometimes hard to tell; he'd been out of the scene for a long time now. It could be a permanent impairment, or he could just be high.

"I can assure you, I am neither an undercover cop nor a dealer," Sherlock said, "I just need somewhere quiet to - You see, my girlfriend's a bit of a square."

"Come on Billy, he's alright," said Isaac, "I told you. He's that detective. The genius."

_Genius?_ Of course he was a genius. Christmas dinner at the Holmes' involved three out of the ten most intelligent people on the planet, sitting around the table for turkey and mince pies. And on his mother's part; a side dish of lots and lots of Valium.

Billy stared at him a moment longer, then said, "alright, I'll show you around. But on your head be it, Isaac Whitney."

"Tranq you very much." Sherlock followed them into the main part of the house.

* * *

"That there is the chill out zone, in case you're feeling all… feely. That kind of thing." Billy pointed out each room of the Hotel Paradiso as they made their way through. Isaac tagged along for the tour, if only out of curiosity why Sherlock was doing something like this. Inside the room, some guy was feeling up his girlfriend on a dank mattress, unaware that someone was watching. Their mouths explored each other like engorged slugs.

Sherlock shuddered. He turned away, "moving swiftly on."

"Yeah, uh, in there is the TV, you know in case people want to watch porn or whatever." Thankfully no-one was in there at the moment, but there was a litter of smoking paraphernalia and two bongs on the coffee table. The TV was chained to the wall, electrical cables trailing perilously around the edge of the room and spliced onto bare points. They'd obviously hijacked the power from the street. Fairy lights were strung up one wall, so at least someone had made some kind of effort.

Every corner of the house was knee deep in rubbish, food wrappers, drinking straws, cat shit, and huge swathes of plaster were sheering, decayed, from the walls. It smelled of cannabis resin and unwashed human.

Billy took them upstairs. "Here is the shooting gallery." He indicated to a large room on the left, the windows all boarded up with tin-foil. It was lined with sofa cushions and mattresses which looked like they had been scavenged from a skip. Several people were either cooking up or gouching out from the morning's hit. "And this is the kitchen."

"So, _'Billy'_" said Sherlock, "what's your part in all of this?"

"I watch the door. Make sure no-one untoward comes in." At this pause he looks pointedly at Sherlock. "This is a safe place. It's important to me that people feel safe. In return I get a cut of everything Darkside sells and the occasional freebie."

"So you're here a lot, then?"

"I doss 'ere most of the time, yeah. That ways I can keep an eye on people."

"What's your problem?"

"E's and Temazies mostly. Used to work in a pharmacy, years ago. Gave it all up when I discovered the life enhancing qualities of MDMA."

Isaac laughed.

Sherlock turned to him, "what about you? You can't be older than seventeen. Why aren't you in college?"

"You went to college, right?" Isaac replied.

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"And you're 'ere too, init. See what I mean?"

Sherlock just sighed and took a good look around the Paradiso's kitchen. Every surface was covered in cat hair and crap. There might have been a rat skeleton in the corner. Something unmentionable was splattered all over the inside of the microwave and the window warriors had left various knives wedged into the skirting board. Burnt foils left over from smoking heroin were piled up on the counter and spilling out of every drawer, and someone had left several milk bottles full of urine on the table.

"Yes," said Sherlock, "this'll do very nicely."

* * *

Janine was searching through filing cabinets for the information Charles needed for his board meeting. It was surprisingly difficult considering it was she who designed the office infrastructure. She often wished they could digitise all this, but it was much safer keeping hard copies; you can't hack a piece of paper.

She retrieved what she wanted, photocopied it and began to stick post-it notes all over the document, telling Charles what all the other key personnel in the company thought about certain issues. She had spent months surreptitiously extracting information from the people she had daily contact with. They probably didn't even know they'd had their brains picked, freely offloading their concerns on her because they perceived her as a comrade in arms against Charles. In part it was true; she really had no loyalty. She was just doing her job.

She had become an expert manipulator.

Now that she'd finished the notes, she could grab another break. She hadn't had time for lunch and her blood-sugar was running low. It was so much harder to seem civilised on the phone when people wasted her time, like they frequently did, when she was hungry.

The phone calls always slowed down in the afternoons, so she could breathe a little. Kayleigh was out of the office, running an errand for her at the printer's. She took a kit-kat out of her desk drawer and started checking her favourite websites. When she'd finished with Zoella, she self-consciously clicked over to John Watson's blog. She hadn't had as much time to read up on Sherlock as she'd wanted; she just dipped in there every so often, not even reading in chronological order, just choosing whatever entry caught her imagination.

She'd already read everything Sherlock had written on his own website and she had to admit, it was a little dry and academic. It sounded like his voice in her head, but it didn't, it didn't actually tell her anything about him that she didn't already know.

Much better to hear it from the man who knew him best.

She clicked on the title, _'New Beginnings'_. She knew about Sherlock's fake suicide, of course. You had to be on Mars not to read about that in the papers. She'd even commented on it to Charles one morning, during their daily analysis of the headlines. But she'd never asked those involved what they thought about it. She didn't know either John or Mary well enough to tackle such sensitive questions.

As she read, the hand holding the chocolate dropped to the desk. _Dear God_, this was horrible. She blinked with confusion that the man who had swept her off her feet yesterday could do such a cruel thing. The actual words didn't do it justice, but you could tell from the tone; John's life had been left in tatters, devastated. Why hadn't she seen it before? She felt sick. She had to talk to Sherlock about this.

The intercom buzzer made her jump. "Jaysus…" She pressed the button, brushed crumbs off her desk. "Yes?"

_"Janine, would you make a cup of coffee for us both and come in here? I need to ask your opinion about something."_

"I'll be right in."

Mugs for the coffee this time, rather than Sunday best, as they had no visitors today.

She brought the board meeting notes and telephone handset with her into Charles' office, just in case. As she put the notes and drinks down on the coffee table, he patted the seat next to him. It was a grey-marl, post-modernist bench sofa and she smoothed her skirt down to her calves as she sat. Bloody thing always sunk down lower than she was expecting. He'd probably chosen it because it made people feel ill at ease.

She was careful to leave a respectful distance between them.

"What's on your mind?" She breezily tucked hair behind one ear. There was no other paperwork on the table, no electronic devices, nothing to indicate why he had brought her in here.

Magnussen looked her over for a second before answering. "I was going to say, what is on _your_ mind."

"Oh?"

"You don't seem yourself lately, Janine. I am slightly worried about you." His eyes burned into her with their usual shark-like intensity.

"Oh," she laughed it off, relieved, "it's nothing. I'm just tired, that's all. Get a little jet-lagged now and then, so."

Magnussen took a sip of his coffee. She'd left the spoon in it, from when she'd added the sugar, and he let it swing to the side as he tipped the mug. It was a little too hot, she knew that, and he looked into the liquid, calculating how long he had before he burned his tongue. "I must be driving you too hard," he said, "why don't we see if you can get you a little more help, talk to HR in the morning."

"Oh, it's fine, honestly. Kayleigh's grand. We're managing." She felt like something was brewing and it wasn't just the coffee.

"You know how I like to work only with a small group of those I can trust." Magnussen fixed her with that stare again. "I hope you haven't gotten yourself… in trouble."

Janine blinked. She didn't know what to say. Suggesting she might be pregnant was extremely inappropriate. She'd been worried that he was gearing up for one of his psycho moments. He'd been fine for a while and she'd gotten used to gritting her teeth and pretending everything was alright when they were alone together. He cleaned his spectacles and put them back on while she was thinking through her response. "You needn't worry about me abandoning you when the business is going through such a season of growth," she said diplomatically, "I'm in this for as long as it takes to establish a lasting legacy, you know that - "

"So there's no young men on the horizon," he joked, but not quite.

"Oh, God no, who's got time for that?" she smiled, taking her cup of coffee rather gratefully.

Magnussen was just about to say something when the phone rang. _Saved by the bell,_ she mentally breathed, thank fuck she'd brought it with her.

"Charles Magnussen's office," she said, smiling apologetically in her boss's direction, "I'm afraid he's in a meeting… Can I take a message? I'd be your first point of contact for that, actually… Certainly. When Jamie comes back I'm going to send out the newsletter about the strategy training… Yes… Yes… No… Okay, see - "

As she spoke, she watched Magnussen reach out, take the scalding hot spoon from his mug and hover it over her arm. She frowned, still deep in conversation. Then he grabbed her free hand and pressed the spoon onto the tender skin on the crook of her elbow. She managed to hold on until she'd finished the conversation, for the sake of the person on the other end, but the searing heat and the sheer insanity of it nearly made her swoon and cry out. "What the fu - " she dropped the phone and wrenched her arm away, but Magnussen would not let go. His expression was utterly calm and his sweaty mitts were on her - she was too shocked to lash out.

She banged her legs on the coffee table and the mugs spilt on the floor. Finally he let go and she staggered backward, her face a mask of shock. Magnussen smiled ever so lightly. "What's the matter?" he said, like she was the one being unreasonable.

She managed to turn around and burst her way inelegantly through the door. Thankfully Magnussen did not follow.

"Hey," Michael was on one of the reception chairs reading a magazine, having just arrived to take Magnussen to his meeting and, seeing her face, he began to rise, "are you Okay?"

She just carried on to her desk and ignored him.

"Janine," he said, getting concerned now, "what just - "

She hooked her bag off her chair and swung it onto her shoulder. "I'm going home early," she dead-panned, "I don't feel very well. Please tell Kayleigh to take messages."

Michael was left half standing and confused as she made for the lift.

* * *

Who could she talk to? Janine thought as she nursed a sandwich from Pret on the tube. She felt a lot calmer now that she'd eaten something real, had a chance to get her breath back. She didn't imagine it, did she?

The welt had started to blister surprisingly quickly.

There was absolutely no precedent for being assaulted like that. People would think she was crazy if she told them her employer had burned her with a teaspoon. Maybe it was her own fault; she shouldn't have made the coffee so hot out of spite. But no, she shouldn't go down that road. What he'd done was sadistic and illegal whatever excuses she came up with.

Now she was seriously considering not showing up for work tomorrow, but that would probably be a big mistake. Magnussen had been trying to show her that he owned her; pissing him off would only bring a crap-ton of bricks down on her personal life and her career.

_Shit._

She was trapped. She didn't even know what he wanted from her. Was he just trying to see how much she would endure for the sake of money? Like the time he made her stay perfectly still so that he could poke her eyeball? It was early in their relationship and she hadn't believed he would actually do it. But he did. He actually flicked her in the eye.

He was a sick fuck.

If it was a sexual thing, that would've been easy; just take him to a tribunal and sue his ass off. But as it was, she was just going to have to hold her head high and pretend nothing was wrong.

She almost laughed at herself, causing some turns of the head from other passengers. How on earth had a modern, headstrong woman gotten herself into this appalling situation? If it was a lover who had hurt her, there was no way she would have stood for it a second longer.


	7. Éphémère

**_ÉPHÉMÉRE_**

* * *

_Friday 16th August 2013_

* * *

Sherlock picked up the towels from the bathroom floor._ Nice soap improved also things_. He'd learned that from the dead Eddie van Coon. Not that it had helped Eddie's cause. This was entirely new to him this making-the-place-look-more-or-less-habitable-for-a-guest thing. Any 'people' that had visited him at home in the past weren't exactly honoured guests. They were admitted only reluctantly and in the case of necessity.

Except maybe Molly.

He'd dropped the towels there late Wednesday night, after taking a bath with plenty of Dettol in it to remove the aroma of _Eau Du Chat Mort. _He'd ended up staying at the Hotel Paradiso a lot longer than he'd initially anticipated.

Darkside turned out to be quite an agreeable bloke. Sherlock had used the 2mg of hydromorphone and when the rush had subsided he sat with the others on the sofa in the TV room. A twenty-something, clean-cut, middle class guy in jeans too-expensive-for-that-kind-of-place came and joined them, introduced himself as Jake, and they spent hours telling stories and doing quite a lot of pot. It was only when Jake started asking Sherlock if he wanted any oxycodone that he realised he was the dealer. There were still people in the world who could throw him off, especially if he was high.

Billy explained that Jake was called Darkside because of his love of the original _Star Wars_ movies. _Not _the prequels, that was important if you wanted to stay on the right side of him.

Sherlock had the brilliant idea of watching one of the DVDs. _Steel Magnolias _wasn't the usual preserve of four supposedly tough men, but one made stupid decisions when one was stoned. They had gotten rather emotionally involved in the movie and Isaac had even cried at the fact that the main character sacrificed her own life to have kids, citing that Hollywood were bastards for making you love someone and then ripping them cruelly away.

It was one of those surreal experiences that you were lucky if you could keep down to the bare minimum, but necessity trumped social awkwardness on this particular occasion. Sherlock kept nodding off and waking with a start, believing he had been engaged in conversation or watching the movie, but then realising that he'd gone off on a tangent down the corridors of his mind. Like waking from a dream, it made sense at the time, but the longer you left it, the more the meaning slipped away from you like effluent down a sluice gate.

Time dilated and he found himself relating the tale of how, as a much younger man, he'd been on a bit of a bender with the wrong kind of people and had foolishly boasted about pulling a bong in one go. He'd been asked to prove it. Unfortunately he hadn't realised that the owner of the bong had also packed it with crack as a joke and he'd blacked out almost immediately. They had left him for dead and just stepped over him on the way to the bathroom for almost a whole day. When he finally regained consciousness, it was dark and the place was deserted. His face had been in vomit and the owner's pet rats had escaped and eaten his jacket. They'd made a nest out of the shreds. He was furious.

The others had laughed at the story but it just made Sherlock feel sick.

He kicked the basket of dirty laundry back into the bedroom, the belt of his dressing-gown swinging behind him, and absently felt his chin. He hadn't shaved for a couple of days either. On the one hand, this case was one of the most involved and dangerous he'd ever taken, but on the other, it was making him a slob. At least that sofa hadn't given him lice.

After a shower and a bit more general cleaning up, he made his way down to Mrs Hudson's kitchen.

She had the radio on quietly and was reading one of her crochet magazines, even though he'd never seen her do crochet.

"Oh, now he puts in an appearance," she said as he knocked softly and pushed the door.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means where were you when I needed someone to fix the boiler?" Mrs Hudson put down her reading glasses and made her way over to the kettle.

"Not your maintenance man, Mrs Hudson. No tea for me, only popped down to borrow something."

"I wasn't offering you tea."

Sherlock stiffened. Mrs Hudson was clearly in a mood. "You're still mad at me about Saturday." Even the round of Cluedo had done nothing to reassure her. She gave him the silent treatment, making herself a cup of tea in one of those slim, flowery mugs that he hated so much. "I told you, I had work to be getting on with," he continued lightly, careful not to give anything away.

"Work, work, work, that's all you ever do. You hardly ever - "

Sherlock ignored her, "I was just wondering if I could borrow the good china. Someone's coming round."

"You don't even make time for the people who are important in your life, but time passes you by, young man, you'll find that sooner or later. And then it'll be too late."

"The china, Mrs Hudson."

"You were the happiest I've ever seen you at that wedding and then all of a sudden…" She finally noticed how he was dressed. "Coming round?"

"Just a client. I, uh, need the teapot and the good cups."

"You don't get out the good china for clients." She narrowed her eyes.

Sherlock was now on the back foot. "The client? Not a client the, er… friend."

"The what?"

"A friend. My friend. But unfortunately you won't get to meet them because you go to bingo on Fridays please say you're going to bingo because I don't think I can stand it if you're not."

"I might," she said, "I might not."

"You are. In fact, you're going to go and get ready now," he began to usher toward the door, but she dug her heels in, "in case she comes early."

"She?" And then Mrs Hudson had a brain wave. They were rare, but they did happen. Her expression changed from one of mild annoyance to pure elation. "It's that girl from the wedding, isn't it?" she squealed.

Sherlock pinched his nose between his eyes. "It might be."

"The Indian girl? You two did seem to be getting rather cozy. I can't say I'm surprised, weddings make everyone get in the mood for romance - "

"She's not Indian, Mrs Hudson she's Ir - "

"Makes you want to settle down." She started talking over him. "Everyone needs someone, Sherlock even you - "

" – anian. Irish. Irish Iranian. Something like that. Mrs Hudson will you please stop. This is exactly the kind of thing I was trying to avoid."

"Ooh, it's so romantic," she hugged herself, "just think; you met at a wedding - "

"Calm yourself woman. It's not like we're getting engaged. We've known each other for a week. We've been on one little tryst in which we paraded around a few tourist attractions and had afternoon tea. I would hardly call that occasion to start sending out save-the-dates."

"And to think, all this time we thought - "

"What?" he said, "you thought what?"

"Nevermind. My gay-dar is obviously not what it used to be. Mind you," she looked down at her own body, "nothing's what it used to be, especially my - "

"Enough. I'm _taking_ the teapot and if you're still here when she arrives, I _strongly_ suggest you stay out of sight." He couldn't help noticing that she had a small tear in her eye.

She surprised him by grabbing him and hugging him and letting out a little, "oh."

Sherlock kept his arms by his sides, straight as a plank. He was quite touched. Or would have been had the romance been a real one. Damn all these emotions. It was the drugs messing with his endorphins. _Had_ to be the drugs.

* * *

" – Happy birthday, dear Michael, happy birthday to you!" Janine held out the cupcake, wishing slightly that it was for her. "It's gluten free, I checked."

She and Kay weren't exactly a choir but she could carry a tune without too much embarrassment. Shame the same couldn't be said for poor Michael, who was above it all. It was quite funny watching this serious, well-built man holding a tiny pink cake with a candle in it. He was a certified bodyguard for heaven's sake, he didn't go in for this kind of thing.

Didn't stop him scoffing the cake, though.

Kayleigh giggled at his antics. He was licking the icing off his fingers. She looked like she hoped Michael would notice her, but he only had eyes for Janine at that point. Kay looked a bit put out when he passed her over.

"I feel bad now, I didn't get you anything," he said.

"Ach, all I need from you, Mickey Mouse, is a monthly expense report. Y'don't have to get me birthday presents."

"No, Charlie sorts that out." Kayleigh folded her arms disapprovingly.

"Actually," said Janine, "I choose my own birthday presents from him. And I have to say; I have impeccable taste." She gratefully watched Kay slink off in a huff, taking one of the cupcakes with her. She'd been waiting to get Michael on his own all day, but he'd been driving Charles.

He pre-empted her strike, coming a little closer than was normally acceptable. He was not the most subtle of men, but that wasn't why Charles employed him. "He didn't ask about you, yesterday, if that's what you've been worrying about."

"Ah," she slumped a little, "it wasn't, but that's good to know."

All day Charles had acted like nothing had ever happened. It was part of his power trip; only make a scene if it's on his terms. It would have been a helluva lot easier if he was mad at her for walking out, said something about her abandoning their work in the middle of the afternoon. She knew how to handle an argument, accusations, anything remotely confrontational, but she didn't know how to handle this silent mind-fuck. She looked down thoughtfully and that only served to increase Michael's concern.

"He's done it before, you know."

"Done what?"

"Oh, come on," he grasped her elbow lightly and it wasn't entirely welcome, "you must know that's why the last one killed himself."

"Jordan Whelan _killed_ himself?" Her voice escalated a little more than she'd intended. It gave a whole new meaning to the phrase, _'what did your last servant die of?'_

"Of course. Did no-one tell you that when you started? He must have done something Charlie didn't like because, well, you know… he started touching him up. Maybe he didn't even do something wrong. Maybe Charlie just got bored."

"But that's absurd, why didn't he just tell someone? Surely a little unwanted attention from his boss isn't enough to make a man kill himself."

"But is it just a little unwanted attention, though? You tell me."

"I… I'm not sure." Janine searched his eyes. He was like a great big Andrex puppy, but somehow there was a lack of compassion in there. "How did he do it?"

"Hanging," Michael swallowed, "I found him."

"I can't understand why you stick around." After she said it, she realised she'd been mirroring Kayleigh's thoughts. Why did they stay? What terrible secret had Jordan trapped? She reckoned Michael had just as big a secret to exploit. She didn't say it out loud, but that was how Charles got him to do the things he needed him to do. "Why do you think he does it? Why would he treat the closest people to him this way?"

"Are you going to report him?"

"You know what?" she said, almost humorously, "I'm not."

"It's not that simple, is it?"

"You're right about that," she said wryly, but changed her tone when she heard rustling coming from the lift, and cleared her throat, "anyway, I meant it about those expense reports. I need them _on time_ this month, otherwise it just holds everyone up."

"Yes ma'am." Michael was as good as, if not better than she was at putting Charles Magnussen off the scent.

Magnussen breezed into the reception area and clicked his fingers at Michael as an instruction to follow. He didn't even look at Janine.

* * *

As it happened, she wasn't early at all; she was forty five minutes late. And Mrs Hudson still hadn't gone to the bingo. Sherlock paced. He'd put hot water in the tea pot to warm it up, replacing it about three times as the minutes ticked by and the previous water cooled.

This was worse than waiting for the next cigarette, (he'd confined himself to one a day, smoked on the bedroom windowsill, so that it didn't get out of hand,) or the next fix of opiates. Well, maybe not quite that bad. _Oh God_, how long was it again, before he could have some more?

Maybe she wasn't coming, but then she would have texted, wouldn't she? He couldn't afford to blow this. And he needed the milk for the tea. Maybe shouldn't have done that, asked for a pint of milk. It was too flippant. At the time he'd thought it was cute. It was backfiring now; he hated tea without milk.

At last the doorbell rang. Mrs Hudson got there before him, only God knew how with her hip, and he almost tripped down the stairs in his haste. Not a good start.

"Hellooo," whinnied Mrs Hudson, "come in, come in. I'm just putting the kettle on - "

"No you're not. Just come on up, Janine." Sherlock put his arm around her shoulders just in time and steered her toward the stairs.

Janine gave Mrs Hudson a little smile and a wave before she was whisked away. "Hello Mrs Hudson, lovely to see you again - "

"Lovely to see you, dear," the older lady called up the stairs.

Once he'd gotten her inside, he slammed the door to the flat as if he was trying to keep zombies out. "That," he said, "was close. She would've kept you talking for at least two hours. By the way, if she does ever pin you down with her incessant gab and starts asking about the weather in India, just go along with it."

"Okay," Janine frowned. "I'm sorry I'm so late."

She had crumbs on her lapel.

"Have you eaten? I thought we could go out."

"Maybe later. I'm still full of cake. There was a birthday at work… I'm not usually so disorganised. I hope you weren't sitting here moping."

"I had a lot of work to be getting along with anyway."

"Oh right," she trailed her fingers on the table, "is this your, uh, desk?"

There were at least four surfaces strewn with paperwork and whatever projects he was working on at that particular moment in time. He waved his hand dismissively, "they all are."

"Oh," she said, looking around, "if tonight's not a good time…"

"It's fine," he said, coming to her, "it always looks like this." May be time to rethink his definition of tidying up.

"There's quite a lot of dust." She held her fingers up.

"It's like Quentin Crisp says; doesn't get any worse after three years."

"Indeed."

"In actual fact, it provides rather an efficient intruder alert system. If anything's been disturbed, I can see immediately. You look very… nice today."

She was wearing a red polka dot dress that made her look like a 1940's starlet and a white cardigan. A Chanel bag hung on her shoulder. It was the real thing. He hadn't seen her like that before, with her hair up, but he liked it. She didn't belong here. She was Technicolour; everything else was black and white.

"Thank you. I brought your milk."

"You must let me reimburse you." Of course he had no intention of doing that, as he hardly ever carried loose change, but he had to say something to let her know he didn't take her for granted. This was a lot more awkward than he thought it would be. Should he kiss her? Not yet, he decided. It was one thing playing the part when they were in neutral territory, but bizarrely, inside his own home he was lost. He felt like she was inspecting his life, making her mind up if she wanted to keep him. He normally couldn't care less what people thought, but this was different. She _had_ to like him. Everything about him.

"It's no problem, honest. I didn't know what you wanted so I got two pints of green. Is that Okay?"

"It's perfect. I'll make the tea." That's it, use lots of positive words, neuro-linguistic programming for her brain. He headed for the kitchen where the teapot was rapidly cooling. Again. He grimaced. "Thank God we escaped Mrs Hudson's dishwater. Funny, isn't it? Doesn't matter if it's a brain storming session or breaking the ice. The solution to pretty much anything seems to be to throw tea at it." He was rambling now and she seemed to lose interest.

Janine nosed in his cupboards while he made the tea. Internally he guttered and stalled. Although he was used to being searched, (she wouldn't find anything because he'd stashed the drugs safely under the floorboards,) he suddenly remembered that girls liked to come in and try and take control and rearrange his life. _Wow, that must've been buried quite deep_, he thought.

"Sherlock, you've got no food. We need to go shopping."

"Er, no. Don't like supermarkets. They're full of people."

"You've got to eat. What do you eat? Don't you cook? _Can_ you cook?"

"I can cook, but I don't usually bother. I was a student once, you know. My speciality is leftovers with chilli powder and fried eggs. You should try it some time."

She laughed at this.

He was mildly pleased with himself. "I know how to cook a steak properly and I make a mean soufflé."

"Man cannot live by soufflés alone." She opened the fridge.

_Damn,_ he'd forgotten to check in there. There was nothing in it save for a potato that had shot out desperate albino tendrils in an effort to escape the salad drawer, and a bottle of Spitfire Ale that John had left there in 2010. She didn't seem to be phased by the contents of the freezer, however. "Doesn't the plastic bag of skinned rats bother you?" It seemed to bother most people.

"I assumed it was for your experiments. Just tell me you got them from the pet food shop and you didn't have to go out and garrotte them yourself," she laughed.

"I promise." He wasn't 100% sincere. "Shall we retire to the drawing room?"

"Can we just sit here?" She indicated to the kitchen table. It was the clearest spot in the whole flat.

"Fine." Sherlock brushed aside some of the paraphernalia to make room for the tea tray.

They sat facing each other and started on the tea. "Mmmm, that's good," said Janine.

"It's half English breakfast and half Earl Grey."

"Do you mind if I slip my shoes off? Feet are killing me."

"Hard day at the office, dear?"

"Ugh," she sighed, "not as bad as usual. I don't want to come across as a complainer, but my boss is a complete nut-job."

"Oh," he tried to look concerned but slightly disinterested, "that's a bit of a bummer, seeing as you work so closely together… I expect."

Janine took a deep, steeling breath. "He's actually not so bad most of the time. He's very generous, gives a lot of money to charity. Ninety nine percent of the time he's completely normal, but the other one percent he's totally demented."

"And that's the part that counts, isn't it?"

"It's nothing I can't handle. He's just a big bully. It's no different to school, y'know, they pick on people who are different. They know they can push your buttons with certain things and they like to exploit that."

"So, what are you saying, that he does it for fun? What kind of thing are we talking about here?"

"Just, little things. Humiliating me in front of other people. In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even realise it's offensive." She sipped her tea. "Sorry, I must be boring you to death. Your eyes always seem to glaze over when I talk about work."

"Honestly, it's fine. If you can't offload on me, what am I here for?" He smiled, topping up her cup.

"You're such a lamb. I can endure it as long as I know I'm going to leave one day. I'm not sticking around in Dingbat Towers forever, y'know. Oh, no, I've got ambitions, me."

"A grander scheme?"

"Simpler." She went all dreamy. "British citizenship. My own business, although I have no idea what it'd be. I want to own a house one day, retire there and maybe finish my book, plant a garden. I'm saving for a deposit right now, otherwise I wouldn't torture myself showing up to work every day."

"You're writing a book?" _Do not ask to see it, do not ask to see it. _"I'd love to read that sometime. What's it about?" _Shit._

"Oh, nothing you'd be interested in. It's just a fictionalised account of the rise of Esther in King Xerxes court. She was a Jewish girl who - "

"Yes, I'm familiar with the tale."

"It's kind of a cross between _300_ and _The Red Tent, _only a lot more challenging and a lot sexier."

"Sounds intriguing."

"I always found historical novels a bit stuffy," she winked. "Not many people know what pre-Islamic Persian culture was like. So I wanted to write about a world where the palaces are dripping in gold but outside the walls, it's kill or be killed by a genocidal maniac."

"Can't wait." What had he gotten himself into?

"You have to believe in your own work or you'll never finish it. You're not so bad at writing yourself."

"I try. I have penned quite a few scientific papers, about a million words in all."

"Forgive me if I don't jump at the chance to read all those."

"Fiction can be fun, but I prefer the reference section. Did you bring the cards?"

She produced them from her bag, glancing at the junk on the table. "You already have cards."

"It's so that you can see I haven't tampered with them in any way." He unwrapped them and began to shuffle them like a pro.

The beginnings of a grin began to tug at her face. "Are you trying to impress me now?"

"I figured you were pretty hard to impress, so I'm not even going to try. No, it's to do with a case I'm working on. I need to practice on you. Aaaaand I suppose it's also for my own entertainment." He did a few effects with the cards.

"Where did you learn to do that?"

"When I first moved to the city I did a lot of busking and I ended up working Covent Garden next to a street magician. He was really good. I'm not that good. Don't practice often enough."

"Covent Garden, that's a tough gig."

"Had to audition for the spot and everything. Didn't last long. I get bored easily. Did give me lots of time to practice the violin, though." He continued to shuffle and cut the cards, twisting them around at an impossible speed.

"Oh," she jumped like she just thought of something, she looked over at the instrument, resting on his chair, "would you play for me?"

"I don't do requests. I'm not a performing monkey."

"Pretty please."

"Now you're just embarrassing yourself. Okay, maybe later. First, I'm going to read your mind. Pick a card."

"I've been reading John's blog." She chose a card, careful not to let him see, held it close to her chest and only took a tiny peek.

"Oh, you have, have you?" He made three piles with the remaining cards. "Put your card down on any one of those piles. Don't let me see what it is."

She put her card down on the right hand pile. "There's a couple of things I wanted to ask you."

"Shoot."

"How do you do it, the deduction?"

"Oh, everyone asks that. Don't be boring, Janine, it's beneath you." He reassembled the deck, cutting and shuffling again. "Anyway, it's not really deduction. It's _abductive_ reasoning, but I can't go round saying I abduct people can I?"

She laughed, "not really."

"So we just say 'deduce', or 'deduction' for the sake of argument. I'm going to make three piles, but face up this time, to completely randomise them." He dealt out the three piles and cut and shuffled them in a different order.

"You see everything."

He licked his lips, meeting her gaze over the cards, "I've learned to filter a lot of it out."

"But walking down the street for you must be like being hit by a nuclear blast of information."

_How did she know that?_ "Pretty much, yes."

"Wouldn't life be easier if everyone came with a visible list of all their iniquities just hanging over their heads?"

"Not really. I think it's a lot safer if there's only a few people who can do it."

"Don't you ever think about what it's like for the rest of us?"

"You see, but you don't observe. That's the only problem. You're an intelligent woman; you can be taught."

"I want to. If you're willing."

"Hold that thought." He began to count out cards from the top of the deck, "Q, U, E, wait, your card was the queen of spades, right?"

"No," she smiled.

"Aw, crap," he replaced the cards on the top of the deck, "must've messed it up somewhere. Um, what was it anyway?"

"Ace of hearts."

"Let's see if the cards can find it for us." He began counting out the cards again. "A, C, E…" and so on, until they came to the S. The very next card was her card.

"How," she began, but just sat there open mouthed and shaking her head slowly. "I can't…"

He twisted his mouth smugly. "I already knew what card was on the bottom of the middle pile and I put it on top of yours." He started shuffling again, his hands never still. "It's surprisingly easy when you know how. Every thing has a solution. People are confused how I know so much about them, but when you take into account certain base assumptions - "

"You can logic the rest." She drained her tea.

"Now I'm going to find five cards at once."

"That's impossible."

"But this time I'm going to let you have all the control."

He dealt five piles of five cards, totalling 25 cards. They were face down.

"When you… when you pretended to kill yourself, you must have known how it was going to affect John."

"I want you to pick up each pile and choose a card from it. Don't take it out, just memorise it and put them back."

Janine picked up the first pile and browsed through. "You didn't answer me." She replaced the cards.

"I knew this was going to come up sooner or later." He played with the remaining 27 cards while she chose from the piles. "But I suppose it's better to get everything out in the open right at the start."

"Okay, I'm done with the choosing."

"Sure you don't want to write them down?"

"I'm sure I can remember five cards. I'm not giving you any opportunities to cheat."

"It only works if you know what your own cards are, so you'd better remember. Now, you tell me what order to pick them up in. Remember, you are the one with all the power."

"Trust me. I have a great memory." She pointed to the piles in the randomest order she could muster.

He picked them up. "So you think it was cruel. It doesn't surprise me that people are shocked at my behaviour. I did what I had to do."

"It was a bit extreme though, wasn't it?"

He cut and shuffled the cards repeatedly. "Would you rather that he was dead? I did it to save his life, all their lives."

"Sometimes living with a broken heart is worse than death."

"I don't know about broken hearts, but death is a lot like a holiday if you ask me. Anyway, chicks dig suicide."

"No they don't. Have you ever thought about doing it for real?"

He didn't respond to that, just counted out another five piles of cards. "Now, I'm sure you'll agree they're thoroughly mixed up, but just to be safe, you tell me what order you want them in."

They went through the whole rigmarole again.

"Cut the cards any way you want," he said. "Why are you so interested in John anyway? Take five cards off the top."

She did so. "I'm not. I hardly know them. It's you I'm interested in."

"Why did they ask you to be head bridesmaid, then? Flip them over and spread them out."

She obeyed. "Because Kathy Levinson broke her ankle and I was the only one who the dress fit and could get a day off."

"I didn't know that. I thought Mary was just procrastinating."

"And I like getting a free dinner."

He took a big sigh, "I don't know what you want me to say, Janine. I haven't got any answers for you. All I need you to know is that being around me comes with certain consequences. What I'm trying to say is that it's not safe. I have enemies. In fact, I think it's best if you don't tell anyone we've been out on a date or that you've been here. There are people who would love to exploit the fact that we're associated. Do the same thing with the other piles."

She spread the cards out. "Do you mean the papers?"

"Amongst other scum. Present company excepted."

"I know what I'm doing. I've learned to be discreet."

"I can't think of anything worse than having ones love life spread all over the tabloids. Which order do you want me to find the cards?"

She pointed with a very red, very well-manicured nail.

He picked all five cards out first time.

"How," she blinked, "wait, you did the same thing again. If I can memorise five cards, then you certainly can."

"Is that all it takes?"

"I'm not so sure now," she laughed.

"While you were busy thinking you were fooling me by picking them up in a crazy order, I wasn't even shuffling them. I was _cutting_ them, but I wasn't _shuffling_ them." He demonstrated a false cut with a few of the cards. "They were never in a random order."

"Oh," she breathed in awe.

"Lesson number two. People double bluff you when you're not looking. Especially if they have a skill you don't even know exists."

"So, what is this, a test?"

"Just trying to wake you up." He put all the cards back together with a faro shuffle and a little flourish.

"Sherlock," she took one of the cards and felt the edge with her plump lip, "if you say you had no choice, then I believe you. I know I'm not party to all the details and God knows, I know the tabloids talk utter shite. But if you say it was for his… their own good, then it's good enough for me."

"I appreciate that." He didn't.

"Can I ask you something else, though?"

"Fire away."

"It's about the fall."

"Why does everyone insist on calling it a fall?" he said, slightly annoyed, "It wasn't a fall, it was a jump. I _jumped_."

"Did it hurt?"

"Of course it did. Falling over a hundred feet and landing on your face bloody kills, even if it is on a crash-mat."

"Were you scared?"

"Absolutely terrified. What, don't look at me like that, I'm a human being. I do get scared."

"Who knew? Sherlock Holmes is just a man after all. You must care about John very much."

He didn't answer for a few seconds. "There's one more. This time, there is no trick. It's simple, no piles, no fake shuffling, not even a hint of sleight."

"Come on then."

"Choose three cards. It helps if they're in the same suit, or an order like jack, queen, king. That's right, I'm not even going to touch them. Put them back anywhere you like. I'm rolling up my sleeves so you can see there's no funny business. I'm just going to shuffle them a bit. Don't give me that face. Look closely and you'll see that it's proper shuffling. I'll slow down a bit if you want."

"No, you're fine, I believe you."

"Now I want _you_ to shuffle them. Don't worry if it's not very good, you can make a mess if you want."

She did her best. "Not very professional, I'm afraid."

"Now I'm going to go through them one by one until I find your three cards." He counted them out, one by one, and when he got well past the middle he said, "that's odd, are you sure you haven't spotted one yet?"

"Absolutely sure."

He carried on counting. "How about now?"

"No, not yet."

"Are you sure you memorised them?"

"Yes," she was beginning to smile again.

"Well I'm down to the last three cards now. Shall we turn them over?"

She turned them over. The three, five and seven of diamonds. "Oh, bravo."

"Are those your cards?"

"Yes." She regarded him suspiciously, reluctant to let him win.

"Okay, Okay, I can see we have a cynic in our midst here. How about I turn it up a notch and really blow your mind?"

"I'd like to see you try."

"Take one of your cards and sign it."

She took her time searching her bag for a Sharpie and scrawled her name across the seven of diamonds. "Here."

He fixed his eyes on hers over the table and without even wavering for a second, folded the card in four and gave it to her to examine. She approved of it and passed it back. It was a moment filled with tension, as if they were not merely bowing their heads over a card trick, but exchanging some kind of promise. He was counting on her looking at his eyes and not at the card.

He ripped up the card, then took out his lighter and set fire to it.

She was startled, not expecting such destructive behaviour at his dining table. "Oh!"

He burned his fingers as the ash fell to the table-top. A little bit went in his teacup.

"I don't know what you've got against that card, but that was mean."

"What card?"

"The poor seven of diamonds."

"Oh, you mean _that_ card." He reached behind her ear and produced it, intact.

"Mind officially blown." She grasped the card and his hand all in one, examining it for her signature. "I didn't think I could still be surprised by something like that, but when it's up close…"

"And I am never going to tell you how I did it. It'll spoil the mystery." He was absolutely never going to tell her that he'd crimped all the other cards while she was choosing her special three and just passed them to the bottom of the pile when he found an un-crimped one, or that it was a completely different card he'd ripped up and burned. There was only so much you could give away in one night.

"I'm keeping this." She held up the card to the light. "And now I've done my part and sat here and been duped, repeatedly, I might add, you have to play for me."

* * *

Sherlock crossed to his chair and picked up the violin. She watched as he tuned it, tightened the bow and rubbed something on the bow-hairs.

She never realised there was so much preparation involved. "What is that?"

"Rosin." He held up the little block for her to see. "It's made of pine sap. It makes the hair grip the strings. Without it, a violin wouldn't make a sound. The hair sticking to the strings repeatedly as you move the bow is what causes vibration. In the case of the A-string 440 times per second."

"You're really into all this stuff, aren't you?"

"I've lived and breathed music all my life. It's the only thing that makes mathematical sense of the universe."

"So is that a special violin? Does it have a name?"

"This is just a relatively cheap one from China. It's made in a small family run workshop and they export about a dozen a year. I think these make the best sound personally. I had a Strad once, found it in a pawnbroker's off Hatton Garden when I was twenty one. Got it for a hundred and fifty quid. No one realised what it was because it had lost its label. I recognised it by the density of the wood grain. 1703 was a wet year. I did get to choose the sobriquet, though. I called her Reinette, after the Marquise du Pompadour."

"What happened to it… her?"

"I sold her at Christie's in New York. Didn't exactly go for a huge amount, seeing as she was in an awful condition, but I live off the interest now."

_What the feck?_ She tried not to seem too surprised,_ he has money? _"So you don't really _need_ to work, do you?"

"I only charge for two or three cases a year. It's a fixed price except when I waive the fee all together. I only charge people who can afford it. I can hardly bring myself to charge a mother of three whose husbands been sneaking off to cruise around for other furries, can I? That would just be cruel."

"Why bother to work at all?"

"Stops my brain rotting. I have to do something otherwise I'll just go mad." He put the violin to his chin.

"How long have you been playing?" She calmly came and sat on an old musty chair and tucked her stocking-ed feet up under her, bringing a fresh cup of tea, almost as an afterthought.

"Since I was three."

"Quite a long time, then."

"Not that long."

"Oh, is this the wedding photos?" She picked up a large white album from the small table near her chair.

"There's a very nice one of you and me in there. Page six."

"Don't we look adorable. Mary looks beautiful, doesn't she? Aw, they're such a sweet couple." She carried on flipping through the book. "Are'y gonna give 'em a call when they get back, or d'y'think they're too loved up to bother with the likes of us?"

"Shut up and let me concentrate."

She smiled, holding the fine bone-china tea cup to her lips.

It began slowly. Janine didn't understand what she felt. She wasn't sure if it was the overwhelming events of the last few days or something he'd woven into the music, but it was really affecting her. She didn't know enough about classical music to know how to describe it to someone later, whether you would call it a rhapsody or an étude, but what she did know was that she felt incredibly sad. She was grateful that he wasn't looking at her, but at some far away phantasm, because she was obviously hiding behind the teacup. The concentration on his face was perhaps even more engrossing than the sound.

She put down the photo album.

He swayed. The bow moved. His fingers flitted up and down the neck. She was mesmerised, just as she had been when he manipulated the cards. She tried not to imagine those hands on her.

The tune lived in her mind only for a second and then it was gone. It was fire. It was a mayfly. She wished she could remember it, but it was lost forever, like a dream. One minute it had a narrative, the next it was abstract, but it was always beautiful. She wondered what story he was telling.

Notes grouped together in ever decreasing circles and accelerated until they were overlapping themselves, tugging at the thin air to extract all emotion. He soared to an E7 and then came fluttering down until her heart was on the floor.

She closed her eyes. An arabesque now, dancing like a bohemian spring. He played with the harmonics like a child, or a stone skipping over water, in an impossibly complicated wall of mathematically perfect tones. He was breaking all the rules.

He trilled and picked up speed, and then it all fell apart in a deliberate, calculated, dis-chord. She opened her eyes. She felt like he'd just gutted her and left the pieces scattered to the wind. Their eyes met.

He finally removed the instrument from his chin, "Please don't do that clapping thing. It's so undignified."

"I…" she gasped, "who wrote that?"

"Well," he wiped the bow with a small cloth and placed it back in the case, "the composer is Sherlock Holmes and the original artist is Sherlock Holmes."

"You _wrote_ that?"

"Not so much wrote, as improvised. It was just how I was feeling at that particular moment in time."

She really didn't know what to say. It was one of the most moving experiences of her life. "I'm just going to go and use the ladies room. I mean the bathroom. That tea has gone straight through. Where is it?"

"Just along the hall, to your left."

She scooped up her bag from the table and slipped her feet back in her heels, throwing him back a reassuring smile as he put his things away. She didn't want to travel any further than she had to with bare feet on an un-vacuumed floor.

Once inside the bathroom she dumped her bag on the toilet lid. At least the toilet was clean. She took out her lip-gloss and went to the mirror cabinet to take stock of things. Her heart was still beating deeply and wildly. He was dazzling. His place was a tip, but _he_ was dazzling. And he had serious money. She touched up her lips, took her phone out of her bag and turned it back on. She'd thought it wiser not to receive any calls from Charles while she was at a - what should she call him? Not a lover - a friend's house.

She quickly googled 'Stradivarius Reinette', and sure enough, there was news entry from 2002 with a picture of the violin. She scrolled down, - _was found by a UK student who wishes to remain anonymous. Thought to be made in about 1703, Stradivari's most productive year, it was reported to have fetched a record figure for an unsigned piece, $2,992,000 or £1,996,500 -_

_Two million quid?_ Her heart beat even harder. She sat down on the closed toilet lid. _Two million quid?_ If he was telling the truth, then this changed everything. Okay, he wasn't as flush as some of the men she met, but he was most definitely the most interested in her. This could get interesting. She checked herself. It was moving too fast. But then he did move fast, didn't he? With everything. Did everything to extremes. It wasn't that he was being arrogant; this was just how he lived; this was his reality. She was starting to understand now.

Could she bring herself to carry on with this fling, make him come around to her way of thinking? There was so much to think about; her life was really complicated right now, he was so intense, she worried it would be exhausting, he was incredibly untidy, which she found hard to stomach, and he might just be dangerous. Also he hinted that she might be in danger, which rather than serving to put her off, made it harder to make a decision.

There weren't really any clues in the bathroom that would help her make up her mind. Black mould stood out on the grouting between the Victorian tiles and water dripped from the shower-head into the roll-top bath. He'd left a bottle of disinfectant on the windowsill next to a dead bee. She was almost disappointed there wasn't any dog hair on there. Old-school shaving stuff, she noticed, with a brush sticking out of a mug with the royal wedding on it. Inside the cabinet was a bottle of _Acqua di Palma_, an off-brand antiperspirant and some smoker's toothpaste. The edge of the sink played host to a rather nice bottle of hand-wash from l'Occitane. So he had taste.

There seemed to be two doors to the bathroom. Was the other one leading to his bedroom? She would just poke her head in and have a look, she decided, but that plan went out of the window pretty quickly. She had always had a problem with her impulsivity. His bed was clothed in dove grey sheets from Laura Ashley. She picked up a pillow and pressed it to her face. It was cool, smooth and crisp, and surprisingly fresh. It did, however carry a little of his essence and she found that even that whisper of scent set her insides throbbing. She placed it back where she found it, guilty. She knew she was too nosey for her own good.

She looked around. He had a periodic table on the wall and a bust of some bearded Russian guy. Weird. There was a cloth spread out on top of the tallboy and on the cloth he'd set all his personal things, watch, wallet, keys, phone. It was old fashioned and rather touching. She wondered if he had a good relationship with his dad and had subconsciously adopted this habit from him.

_Mustn't stray too long_, she thought, he'd be wondering if she was Okay. But just as she returned to the bathroom she heard raised voices. It wasn't Mrs Hudson speaking, but another man. Same accent, yet devoid of the deep, hypnotic resonance that she enjoyed in Sherlock's timbre. In fact, it was rather whiney.

What was she going to do?


	8. Belle, Dangereuse

**_BELLE, DANGEREUSE_**

* * *

_Friday 16th August 2013 Continued._

* * *

He watched her go.

This enigmatic creature who didn't belong here. The more time he spent with someone, the more of a mystery they became. The longer he spent with John, the less he understood the man. Why he did certain things, why he thought the ultimate relaxation was watching the inimitable domestic strife that was_ 'The Eastenders', _his obsession with food. Janine's obsession with sex. _Why?_

But he couldn't compare Janine with John. John was his actual friend. Janine was just a - what? The _mark_? An instrument. A means to an end.

This was uncomfortably unlike the weeks and months he spent infiltrating gangs and crime syndicates. He'd been forced to spend a lot of time with those people, but it was more like watching animals in the zoo than shooting the breeze together. The crucial difference was that they were the bad guys. He didn't care about their, _boo-hoo_, tragic back-stories. This was different. Janine hadn't done anything wrong, she was innocent, yet he was still being forced to analyse her lifestyle and her motivations, her darkest thoughts.

As long as people were just a problem to be solved, it was easy. As soon as they became part of ones life, it was personal. They were like onions. There were many layers of pain, and the inmost layers were the ones that they themselves often refused to confront, or even remember. Sherlock was no different. In order to understand someone's deepest secret hurt, he would have to confront that in himself, but he wasn't prepared to do that yet. Some things were better left buried. If that was the cost of understanding someone truly, completely, then he would never have the ultimate knowledge, the ultimate power. Perhaps that was why he avoided all this human relationship stuff, because it made him feel like his powers were diminishing.

Janine was kryptonite.

She was taking a long time and it was getting darker, so he reached out and flicked on a lamp.

She'd seemed unsettled, but that hadn't been his intention. He'd shared the secrets of the cards, included her in on his methods, to try and extend a little trust. If he was the one who turned her on to all this stuff, deception, detection, then he would be under less suspicion of doing it himself. She had to believe they were accomplices.

He heard Mrs Hudson's voice downstairs. '_You can't just walk in like that.'_

Then his brother's, '_private property is an illusion, Mrs Hudson, propagated by the powers-that-be to keep the population under control.'_

There were footsteps on the stairs._ Hmmm, _Sherlock thought,_ he's put on a couple of pounds._

Mycroft entered without knocking.

"Oh, it's you." Sherlock said spitefully.

"I haven't heard from you in nearly a week. Why haven't you returned my calls?" Mycroft had a newspaper in one hand and his ubiquitous umbrella in the other. His waistcoat buttons were slightly strained.

**_B _**_u _**s **Y**_ W_**** e **E **_k i N _**P a **r** L _i A_ M **_e n_** t

_f __**0**__ r_ **g **o T **A **n d _R_ **_e_** a **'s** B _i_ **r t** H d **a ****_y_**

**_F_** r u S_ t_ **r a**_ t_ e _d_ **W** 1 _t h_ T R **e** a _d __**m**_** i** l L

C **0** _n_ s u **L t** _i n_ g _**D** | _e t_ **i c** 1 a N ?

**_W_** h A **t** ... **?**

"Is that what those annoying buzzing sounds were?"

"Yes, it's a remarkable invention, the portable telephone, makes it ever so much easier to spy on people."

"What do you want, Mycroft?" Sherlock repositioned the violin case and flumped down on his chair, grasping the arm rests to show that this was his castle.

"I was worried about you," said Mycroft with his usual supercilious air, "anyway, the real question is, what do _you_ want?"

They both knew the subtext of those words.

"You underestimate me. I have plenty to occupy my time."

Mycroft only now let his gaze drift over to the kitchen where two empty teacups were resting on the tray. "A client?"

There was no point in trying to hide it, he could already smell her perfume. "Yes, an acquaintance from the wedding. I'm helping her find something she lost."

"Oh, what was that?"

"Her self-respect." Sherlock loathed the words falling from his own mouth. It felt disloyal somehow, but he had no choice.

Mycroft chuckled lightly, taking the bait. "As if they can't do that for themselves down in the sewers."

"Anyway, that reminds me. I need money. For expenses and whatnot. I'm practically haemorrhaging cash at the moment."

"Well, that's your own fault for lending it all to John Watson."

"Come on, you know I have no intention of asking for it back."

"So that he can save face in front of his darling new wife."

Sherlock regarded him coldly. Anything Mycroft said about love or marriage was a thinly veiled attack on his brother's shortcomings in that department. What was it Stamford said the other day? _Pot, kettle, black. _"It's _my_ money, Mycroft!" he shouted.

"And you're not getting a penny of it beyond what I deem is safe to dispense. A hopeless junkie let loose in this town with those funds? I don't think so, dear heart." Mycroft sucked his cheeks in, he was always wary of his brother's heightened emotion.

"Stop treating me like a child! Have a little faith in me for once. I'm not going to go off and - " But he already had, hadn't he? "I'll go to Switzerland," he threatened, "I'll impersonate you. You know I will. The bank - "

"Oh, try not to sound so desperate, Sherlock. Talking about money is so vulgar. It's unbecoming of a man of your predilection. Besides, you'll never figure out the password. I made sure of that."

"It's _mine_," he hissed.

Finally, Mycroft relaxed his posture and sighed. "I suppose I could increase your monthly stipend. Although I wouldn't have to if you actually charged the clients. What about this one, are you charging _her_?" He said the word 'her', like it was something vile and repugnant.

As if on cue, the toilet flushed and Janine came out through the hall, smoothing down the skirt of her dress. Sherlock prayed she'd figured out what was going on and played along with it.

"Hello," she said, holding out her freshly washed hand, "I don't believe I've had the pleasure."

Mycroft's micro-expression gave away his discomfiture at her beauty, and confirmed his belief that Sherlock wasn't interested in her.

"My brother," Sherlock introduced him coldly, almost bored, careful not to show any kind of connection between himself and his 'client', "Mycroft Holmes."

Mycroft tucked his umbrella under his other arm and shook her hand, weakly and briefly. The reptilian smile was as insincere as any seen. "_Enchanté."_

_"_Mike Croft?" Janine said doubtfully.

"_My_-croft, with a Y, _Holmes_." Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Never-mind."

Sherlock was beginning to enjoy his brother's frustration. "Ms Hawkins was just leaving actually."

"She was?" said Janine, seeing Sherlock's expression, "yes, she was. Lovely to meet you both Mr Holmes, Mr Holmes, but I must be getting back before my boyfriend figures out I've been enlisting help." She turned to Sherlock, playing her part perfectly, "please be sure to let me know straight away if you hear anything."

"I will." Sherlock could almost kiss her with relief. _Atta-girl,_ he thought. Her façade was flawless. He mustn't look at her as she left. "You'll have to see yourself out, I'm afraid," he called after her, eyes fixed on his nemesis.

"How about a game of Monopoly?" said Mycroft, making himself comfortable, "just like old times."

"I can hardly contain myself." Sherlock yawned, getting up and stretching theatrically. "Haven't you got more… nefarious things to be doing? Doesn't _'Question Time'_ begin soon? You'll have to hurry home if you're to beat the traffic."

Mycroft glanced at his watch. "On the contrary, I have plenty of time."

"I have work to do, thanks to that Hawkins woman. You need to leave."

"Fine. I'll see what I can do about the funds. As long as you're not planning on falling off the wagon again." He gave Sherlock a meaningful glare. "Don't think about hiding anything from me. I _will_ find out. Mark my words."

"What-_ever_," Sherlock flounced like a teenager as he closed the door behind his brother. Then he raced to the bedroom and texted Janine. He calculated she hadn't reached the tube yet.

**_Wait for me at the entrance to Regents Park. S._**

* * *

"What was that all about?" She stared at him as he caught up, one brow raised. "Self respect?"

The sun had all but disappeared now and the comforting, golden glow of the day's ebb was upon them. Gnats swarmed over the hedges.

"Sorry," Sherlock pulled on his suit jacket. "I figured you'd play along if you thought I didn't want him to know who you were. You passed the test."

"You brought me here to _test_ me?" She was definitely pissed off.

"I brought you here for a cup of tea and a chat, but the opportunity arose and I took it. I have to know if I can trust you."

"And was that conversation with your brother for my benefit, or is it always like that?" She followed as he took the Outer Circle south-east.

"I swear, I had no idea he was coming round. He doesn't announce his visits, just lurks in the shadows like the _nachzehrer_."

"Why don't you want him to know what I am to you?" She shook her head lightly.

"You know those consequences I was talking about? Well, most of them are down to him. The day after I met John he kidnapped him and took him to an abandoned warehouse to interrogate him under a spotlight, ended up offering him a bribe to spy on me. That's his entry-level intimidation."

"I'm pretty sure that's illegal," she squinted.

"He works for the government. He's practically untouchable. The most dangerous man in the city. Bar me. I don't want him interfering in our relationship. It's better if he thinks you're just another forgettable client."

"This is the world you live in, isn't it? All the spying and secrets and danger."

"Does it scare you?"

They passed another couple coming the other way on the pavement. A student type with a too-big head and his too-tall blonde girlfriend. They were holding hands. Sherlock wondered if he should take Janine's hand. Probably not.

"No," she said, levelling with him. "Does that surprise you?"

"No."

They slipped through a gap in the hedge into the park, and he made her sit on a wooden bench. They'd officially strayed into an alternative universe now; Sherlock's life. He'd have to share certain things if he was to gain her complete trust. Some of these things were unsavoury to him, but he had little choice. He had to tell her about his drug abuse because, before very long, his antics at the Paradiso would become public knowledge. It was a big part of the plan. He'd also need to make himself vulnerable in some way. Women liked that, apparently.

"Close, isn't it?" He regretted his attire. It was sticky and humid.

"Your brother," she breathed, not a question, but a confirmation to herself, "is he much older?"

"Seven years. I was an after-thought as far as my parents were concerned. They'd finished having kids and I wasn't planned. A nasty, peri-menopausal surprise. The others never let me forget it either."

"Are there any more I should know about? Am I going to get threatening letters?"

"Just the one surviving brother. And one sister."

"What's her name? Or shouldn't I ask?"

"Enola. Don't worry, she's in the states, safely ensconced in the FBI headquarters in Oklahoma City."

"What, as a prisoner?"

"She's the acting Special Agent in Charge of her division. We can't all be genii. She likes to pretend that I don't exist. I'm the black sheep."

"Oh, right." Janine blinked. There _was_ a lot to take in. "I didn't know you could do that, if you weren't - "

"You don't have to be born in the USA to be a law enforcement officer. My parents are over there visiting right now actually. They like to take in Graceland, the Grand Old Opry and Pensicola on the way. Keeps them out of my hair for a few months of the year."

She laughed. "They sound excruciatingly normal."

"They are so boring it makes me want to cry." He smiled warmly at her. She couldn't stay annoyed with him for long it seemed. Sure, this stuff was uncomfortable, unknown territory for him, talking about everyday stuff like family, but he was doing it. He was really doing it. They were sitting near a bed of yellow roses planted in memory of Princess Diana. The fragrance washed over them, but they were not without thorns; beautiful, dangerous.

"You said 'surviving'. What happened to your other brother?"

Sherlock's smile dropped. He'd slipped up somewhere along the way. _Ugh,_ how was he going to tackle this? It had been years since he'd even thought about it. "We don't really talk about - "

"Oh sorry, I shouldn't pry. Bad habit."

"No," he said, "it's fine. He's dead."

_Just like that_. _He's dead_. His own words were like a dagger.

She must have heard the unbearable load upon the word 'dead' because she laid a hand on his forearm and said, very thoughtfully and very sincerely, "I'm really sorry, Sherlock. You know, you mustn't be ashamed, we all have our losses to come to terms with."

"Alastair Armitage StJohn Holmes. Those four words could get me twenty years in prison." The spot of earth between Sherlock's shoes was strewn with ungerminated grass seed and a torn corner of a Cadbury's wrapper. When he looked up, Janine was frowning, so he explained. "Als... betrayed his country. MI6 hung him out to dry and he was publicly executed by Chechen radicalists for being a triple agent. He'd been selling British secrets to anyone willing to pay, for years and years. It was absolutely devastating for our parents, as you'd expect, and I just got lost in the storm. I was fifteen at the time. They'd lost their first-born, their golden child, why would they care about me? To make matters worse, Mycroft had an injunction put on the case, so we can't even talk about it to each other. On pain of treason. I'm not just breaking the law by telling you about his loss, I'm breaking the law by telling you I ever _had_ a brother.

"No wonder Mike's so paranoid about you. I'm liking him less and less."

"Did - did you hear _everything_ we said while you were in the - "

"Pretty much," she said, "why, does that worry you?"

"Look, there's something we need to talk about. I think it's important that we get this out of the way sooner rather than later."

"I agree. I've been meaning to talk to you, It's just that - "

And at exactly the same time he said, _"I'm an addict,"_ she said, _"I'm in therapy for - "_ and they laughed when they realised they'd been talking over each other.

Janine spoke first; "You go. I didn't catch that. You're _what_?"

"An addict."

She leaned back on the bench and tucked her hands under her thighs. "Okay," she said slowly. "Of what?" She was obviously hoping he was going to say Rich Tea biscuits, or shoe shopping or something hilariously innocuous.

"I had a... brief dalliance with narcotics for a... few... years."

"Which one?"

He looked down, swallowed thickly. "All of them."

"_All _of them?" She blinked.

"Not… not any more. I haven't… I went into rehab several years ago and I haven't been addicted to anything for a long time now." _True._ _To a fashion._ "Look, I just thought it was best if you knew what you were getting yourself into. I'll understand if you want to stop seeing me, I - "

"Well, I do prefer to go into things with my eyes open."

"I'm a scientist, not just a 'druggie'. I don't just _take_ drugs, I study them. I test the purity. I prepare myself. I am informed. I know the risks. I am _careful. _It's when you stop caring about the providence and start taking too much that you get into trouble. I was experimenting to find out what substances had what effect, whether they enhanced my ability to solve puzzles. I was functioning. Very well, as a matter of fact. You have to remember that I was still working the whole time, for years. That was just how I got through the day. It's no different to how people drink multiple cups of caffeine, or cigarettes, or nicotine patches or even just sugar. Alcohol. Alcohol is the worst drug by far, I don't usually - the effects of alcohol are far too unpredictable."

"Oh, that's alright so," she said sarcastically, "as long as you weren't getting drunk."

He was not proud. He'd rehearsed this, figured out the best way to deliver bad news without trying to justify himself, without indulging himself in explanations, but it was so much harder than he'd anticipated, now that she was watching him stumble through the story of his life. Those eyes that nearly everyone made when they realised that he was a shameless junkie. The look John had that first day. He wanted Janine to like him, wanted her to see that it wasn't his fault.

It was all true, but it wasn't his_ truth_. His descent into addiction was far more complicated than a mere list of sins. Still. He hadn't realised how raw and exposing this would feel.

"Are you angry?" he breathed.

"I have no right to be. It's none of my business, is it? I hardly know you."

"That's part of the reason why I wanted to talk to you tonight. Partly it's because the case I'm working on exposes me to people who are going to want to spread rumours that I'm using again, but mostly it's because I need - I - I've been living a lie for so long. I need to tell someone how it really is, what I've been through. I can't keep it all inside any longer. Sometimes I don't think I can take any more."

_And the Oscar goes to..._

Janine grasped his arm again. "Hey. It's Okay," she soothed.

"I created this tough persona," Sherlock gesticulated with his hands, "this outer shell to convince the world that I knew what I was doing, but inside I was lost. I – I – I - "

"Go on."

"I just need someone to know who I really am. I feel like I can be honest with you."

"You can't be honest with the others?"

"They have too high expectations of me. See, John thinks - "

"I don't have any expectations of you."

" - thinks I can't get hurt, tired. He doesn't understand what it's like having people constantly bombarding me with pleas for help. The government, the public. I have to filter them out, I have to have something left for myself."

"I think you're perfectly entitled to feel that way. It's not like the movies, they can't just use you up and expect you to come out of it Okay."

"I knew you would understand." He licked his lips. "I've never... told anyone about any of this before. Not even John."

A park warden wandered by about a hundred yards away. He saw them, yet respectfully ignored them when he saw that they were not the hooligans he expected, but lovers deep in conversation. Janine took Sherlock's hand in hers and squared up to him, preparing herself to say something very serious. "Sherlock," she said softly, "I'm not naïve. I know you've got a past."

"I was prepared for you to walk away from this…" he turned away, "this thing, whatever it is, between you and me."

"This insane mutual infatuation."

He tried to look slightly embarrassed, innocent. "Is that what they call it? Okay."

"This doesn't change how I feel about you. I'm not going to walk away from this just because you told me you had a drug problem."

He turned back to look at her, almost afraid he would find real compassion. He didn't deserve that. Her gaze tracked all the detail in his face, flitting from his eyes to his mouth. She probably didn't even know she was doing it. It suddenly struck him how incredibly beautiful she was. _Probably just the light._ "Thank you." He smiled sweetly. It was as easy as lying.

The jury was still out on whether he liked this version of himself. Luckily he'd been on his best behaviour at the wedding and that had easily segued into the persona he used when he was with her. There were three personalities vying for attention now. Sherlock Holmes, the real him, a detective who was concerned only with trying to get some incriminating letters back for his client. Sherlock Holmes, the public version, who was an urban legend, a fantasy figure who was fair game for the media. And 'Sherl', a talented, lonely, vulnerable young man who was as misunderstood as he was falling hard for this infuriating, bewitching, compulsive woman.

Trouble was, he wasn't quite sure which one of those was the one that wanted to kiss her. He wanted it to be the third one. He looked down at their entangled hands. It was nice. She had good hands; small and perfectly formed and well taken care of. He hoped he was applying the right amount of pressure, responding to her touch the way she expected, the way she desired.

"As long as you're alright now," she smiled.

He laughed lightly, "I promise. I'd have to be insane to go back to that lifestyle." Completely true. He'd never actually said _'I haven't injected any morphine derivatives this week'_, so he hadn't really lied.

_Sherlock Holmes you are a shit. You are a complete and total fucking arse-hole, do you know that?_

He mentally batted away the voices and decided to change the subject. "Did you say you were in therapy?"

"Oh," she almost laughed, "Yeah. I don't think we need to talk about that. In no way does it have the same gravitas as your story."

"It doesn't need to. If it's important to you, then it's important to me." He quickly added, "don't feel like you have to share something you're not comfortable with."

"Really, it's... nothing." She drew a line under it suddenly, jumped up and unconsciously adjusted her cardigan. Her hair bounced and reflected the sunset like dark glass as she skipped toward the lawn. "You've _played_ for me, now you have to dance."

"Oh no," he followed her in spite of himself, "we can't dance without music."

She caught up his hands and placed them on her waist. "We'll dance to the music inside our heads. Come on."

He grasped her firmly and she held her head high, just like he taught her. Her heels sunk in the grass. "One, two, three - one, two, three," he chanted in triple meter as he spun her around, and he began to feel like everything was going to work out.

It was working.

She was enchanting.

"I've got to tell you the truth, Janine," he said, and she looked up from her feet then, worried that he was going to drop some other life-changing news, but he just said, "you are a terrible dancer."

"Oh, you're cute. You're too cute."

He began to enjoy himself and let himself go to the music in his mind. They were surrounded by the aroma of freshly cut grass and serenaded by the distant roar of the traffic, the hum of the city alive. He caught the tail end of someone's stale cigarette, but rather than making him crave nicotine, it just added to the olfactory profile of the moment, one he knew he would remember forever, whether he wanted to or not. Summer grass, smoke, roses and Janine.

They waltzed in the twilight in Regents Park, making complete fools of themselves, until they were interrupted by a few spots of water on their heads.

Sherlock looked up. It wasn't even cloudy, let alone raining.

"Oh, I love that smell," said Janine, "the after-the-rain-smell. What do you call it?"

"Petrichor."

"_Petrichor_?" She tipped her head back and laughed, "I _love_ that. You know everything, don't you? I'm going to remember that for ev - "

Then they both ducked as the sprinklers erupted and soaked them to the skin. Janine shrieked and ran for the hedge.

"I think that might be why they close the gates at nine." Out of the downpour, Sherlock ruffled his damp hair and pushed back the strands that were plastered to his forehead. He took off his jacket, futilely shook it out - he had no idea why he did that - and hung it on the bench. When he turned, she was very, very close to him, looking up at him with huge eyes like jewels in the half-light. Her soggy dress clung to her breasts. She took a step forward and he could see her cleavage rising and falling from the shock of the cold water and their sudden flight. It was a very close, humid, sticky night indeed.

'Sherl' kissed her deeply.

* * *

"What do you think they'd do if I brought a knife and fork to a place like this?"

"I think they'd kick you out." Janine took another chip from the paper. They were both a bit drier now. "It's part of their policy. No pretentious gits allowed."

"Ha ha."

"Anyway, messy fingers are part of the charm. Do you want any more?"

"I'm fine." Sherlock leaned back in his chair, tossed down his napkin and watched her eat. She did everything with a kind of epicurean grace, nothing could just be taking a sip of cola, or touching him lightly on the arm, it all had to be delicious and sensual. She enjoyed life.

"So," she wiped her mouth, "where are we going to go for our next tourist attraction?"

"I have something in mind."

"You're not going to tell me any details?"

"It's a surprise. I'll text you on Tuesday morning."

"Or you could pick me up," she said hopefully, "or... you could stay over on Monday night... Then you'd already be there."

"Or I could tell you that my mother brought me up to respect women and it's far too soon for that kind of thing."

She cocked her head a little, pretended to punch the table. "Oh, it's that darn old-fashioned thing again."

"Are you terribly disappointed?"

"I'm just going to have to accept that you're the kind of person who likes to take things slow."

"Very, very slow."

"I suppose gentlemen do still exist, and I was going to come across one sooner or later." She propped her chin on her upturned hand.

"And a gentleman treats a woman like a lady."

"I get it. You don't have to keep rubbing it in."

"I wasn't suggesting that your other boyfriends don't treat you like a lady."

"Okay, the way you said 'other boyfriends' made me think you're a _teeny_ bit jealous."

He blushed. It was a good skill to have, that. "I might be. You can hardly blame me if I want you all to myself. In fact," he pretended to psych himself up, "I'd prefer it if you didn't see anyone else while you're seeing me."

"Wow," she crossed her arms, slightly mocking, "that took a lot of balls. You're asking for exclusivity now?"

"I suppose I am." A smile spread across his face. He could feel it.

"We'll see." She tossed her hair.

He screwed up the chip paper into a fist sized ball, looked at his watch, flicked his head toward the door. "Shall we go?"

"Yeah," she said, but then she grabbed his hand again, stopped him getting up. The mocking tone she used in general conversation was replaced by a certain seriousness. "You know I was only teasing. I wouldn't dare two-time you."

"I know." He held her gaze for what felt like a geological age, letting his hand wander and stroke her forearm a bit. She wrenched it sharply away, her eyes innocent and wide. "What? What did I do?" he said, "did I hurt you?"

He gently held her hand and pushed up the sleeve of her cardigan.

She allowed him to examine her arm, looking away.

"Did your boss do that to you?" He was suddenly inflamed, horrified even.

"It's nothing." She quickly covered up the burn. "We were playing a silly game, that's all. He got a bit close with a spoon."

"For God's sake, Janine, I can tell when people are lying. Don't try to lie to me!" This was - the anger inside of him nearly made him faint - this was _insane_. He knew what kind of man Magnussen was, but this was too far. Sherlock suddenly felt very protective of her. She ceased to be just another commodity and he was in danger of letting his rage take over, make him say or do something he'd regret. It was Mrs Hudson and the CIA all over again.

She flinched a little at the thunder in his face. Other customers tried in vain not to look over.

"Will you try to keep it _down_," she glared.

"You told me he was a nut-case, but I never expected this."

"I told you I can handle it."

He was still scorched from their earlier dissection of his personal life, and this wasn't doing much to staunch the flow. He found himself flailing for the right words. This was an unexpected deviation from the plan, a revelation he couldn't have foreseen. He needed to say... something... comforting? "You need to let someone take a look at that, it could get infected."

She looked down, figuring out what to say, what to do. "It's fine. I'm fine. It's barely a scratch."

"That's what they all say." He was sick and confused. "If your boss is bullying you, you need to tell someone."

"I can't. He knows... stuff."

_So he is, then._ "What are you telling me, that he's blackmailing you?"

"Not yet, but he will if I do anything."

"Where did it happen? Isn't there CCTV in your office?"

"He's very secretive, there's never been any kind of surveillance in his office, he makes sure of that. He has cameras on everyone else, just not himself. Ironic, really."

"So it'd be your word against his." It was good that he finally had some information about Magnussen's office, but at what price?

"There's no chance of ever proving anything."

"I know a guy, if you want to, you know - "

"Don't joke about this, Sherlock." She grew cross.

"I'm not joking. I could come in with you, intimidate him a bit."

"I don't need a fecking knight in shining armour. I can take care of myself."

"Clearly."

"I should never have let you see it. We were having a nice time. Did y' have to go and spoil it?"

"Forgive me if I don't think it's Okay for your boss to physically torture you," he almost shouted.

"I'm tired," she gathered her things and gestured for him to stop with a hand. "I'm done talking about this now."

_Great,_ he'd made her shut down. Maybe he'd over reacted. He lowered his voice, "I'll - I'll take you home."

"You don't have to go all the way with me."

"I know, but I don't think you should be alone right now."

She smiled reluctantly, gratefully, and he reciprocated, yet inside he was still a ball of lava.

They spilled back out onto Marylebone Road. It was still early and cars whizzed by as they headed for the tube, the unmistakable sounds and aromas of a summer night, takeaways and pollution.

It was time someone did something about that psychopath.


	9. Fragmenté

**_FRAGMENTÉ_**

* * *

_Saturday 17th August 2013_

* * *

Morning involved far more disturbing issues than the come-down from a hit of morphine.

The fact that there was one more persona to add to the already crowded dynamic in his head, 'Shezza', as the Paradiso lot had decided to call him.

The fact that Janine, a mere commodity, a mark he was exploiting purely as a means to an end, was forcing him to examine his own life, come to terms with the past he'd worked so hard to forget.

The fact that he had kissed a girl, the first time in many, many years, and _liked_ it.

The fact that there were only three cigarettes left out of a pack of twenty. One-a-day wasn't really working, it was more like five-a-day and then a struggle through the next few days, where he'd try to disguise any evidence of his habit before meeting Janine. Sherlock was well aware that the rate at which he smoked was directly proportional to the out-of-control feeling that he often suffered. If his resistance was low then there was no telling where this could escalate, yet he was powerless to stop it.

He flicked ash into the Buckingham Palace ashtray on the windowsill, one foot on the floor for balance and the other hitched up to his chest. Next door's radio was permanently tuned to some nostalgic nineties station, and it blared out the strains of Pulp's _Common People _across the back-yards.

Heat shimmered across the slate roofs. It was going to be another scorcher.

Sherlock could see the young council officer from three doors down hanging out her smalls before her shift. He wondered if she knew her boyfriend was into kiddie-porn. Across from him, in the Siddons Lane flats, an old man adjusted his blinds and pretended not to be spying. _Curtain-twitchers_, he thought, then realised he probably shouldn't be sitting on his bedroom windowsill wearing only shorts. 'No leaning out of windows smoking naked' was surely part of his tenancy agreement. It was worth it for that first early morning nicotine buzzing through his veins, though.

He looked at his watch. _Eleven thirty, Okay, maybe not so early. _The opiates had a habit of doing that to him, made him lose hours of his life, sometimes whole days. He much preferred to fall asleep to it, rather than trying to function as a human being, and then have something stimulating in the morning. Quite the downward spiral he was flirting with now.

_Oh well._

He idly flicked another card across the room and into the waste paper bin beside his bed. It missed, bounced off the rim and skidded under the edge of the duvet. They were no use to him now, the cards, with two missing. He had what was left of the deck resting on the sill, some in the bin, and the rest scattered across the floorboards. Each card he threw was accompanied with a drag on the cigarette.

_Ace of hearts._

Last night hadn't really gone to plan. Yes, to a certain degree, the plan was working. It was drawing her in, making her part of his world and part of his narrative. Getting caught in the sprinklers was deliberate. The violin solo was a nice touch. The card tricks were an analogue of what he was doing to her, gaining her confidence, but ultimately deceiving. The house always wins.

_Two of hearts._

But there was also a danger to the whole scheme. It could be _too_ exposing. There was always the chance that he had read her wrong and she didn't want to waste her time with a self-absorbed junkie. If that was the case then he would have to find other inroads to Magnussen. He really didn't want to resort to burgling the man. It was so… what was that word Mycroft used a lot? Vulgar. And there was always the chance that robbing him directly would bring the law and the out-laws to rain on his parade. No, this way was better. Subtle. Sneaky. Sophisticated.

_Jack of spades._

Janine was hard work. She was high maintenance and she required a lot of attention. There was still so far to go. He wasn't sure if he could take any more of these constant questions, unused to being interrogated without a break. About what he thought, what he felt, what his favourite colour was, what his childhood was like. Why did she need to know all that? Was she just waiting for him to slip up? It was like she was deconstructing him, not the other way around.

_Four of clubs._

Last night was about letting her in, but he hadn't been prepared for how it would feel, discussing his personal life like that. His deepest darkest secrets. Talking about Als had felt like he'd been stretched out on a table and flayed. When your veins, muscles, tissues were exposed like that, there was nowhere to hide. Hide from your true nature. Lying was easy. It was the truth that was hard.

_Joker._

And then there was the whole Magnussen burning her arm thing. What the _fuck?_ What the fuck was he going to do about that?

_Ace of spades._

He'd been a total dick; that was for sure. Flying off the handle and making her shut down emotionally. He should have known that she wouldn't enjoy talking about it, that she felt shame. That she was normally so in control, a sensible, intelligent, professional woman, she shouldn't be putting up with a situation like this, for heaven's sake. That she felt like he was unfairly parading her weakness in front of her.

But he'd been thrown for a loop, angry and confused that this kind of thing could even _happen_. He'd dropped her off and she'd made an effort to not act like it was a big deal. She hadn't invited him in. Probably a good thing. Then he'd gone home and indulged in the only thing that brought him relief from the constant nagging in his brain.

He wasn't even sure where it left them in this, this _relationship_. His phone was just lying there on the bedside cabinet. He made a decision, poised there on the windowsill, the next card in his hand.

_Queen of hearts._

He stubbed out the cigarette, extracted himself from the window ledge where it had embedded itself in his right buttock, and dialled.

Before it reached three rings she rejected his call with a generic, pre-loaded text;

**_Sorry, I can't come to the phone right now. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you._**

So she was either with someone she couldn't just drop, or she was in the office and Magnussen was looking over her shoulder. Or, she just didn't want to talk to him. He agonised over what to say for a few seconds. It felt like an age, but just before he could tap out the message, his phone buzzed. She'd rapidly sent another;

**_Let's have coffee tomorrow. Boss is away, so the mice can play._**

He was relieved, yet he still felt the odd prickling of anger deep inside at the mention of Magnussen.

* * *

"Sorry," Janine brought her attention back to her companion, putting her phone away, "someone important."

"So what's bothering you, Janine? What can I do for you?" Shakti took a sip of her lukewarm Costa latte, "I don't hear from you in months, then you call out of the blue. Must be serious."

Janine much preferred visiting Shakti at her house, but she only had an hour and she couldn't venture far from the office. "I didn't know how to tell you. I stopped seeing you because I hooked up with a guy a few months ago and - "

"You were having sex?"

"I was at a really low point with my boss." Janine examined the crema on her coffee very closely, wondering how she ever thought it couldn't get any worse. Of course, now it was a _lot _worse.

"Did you get yourself to the clinic and get yourself checked out?"

"I didn't take any unnecessary risks. He was clean, nice."

Typical Shakti. Talk about the damage limitation first. She wasn't allowed to show any emotion, show her opinions professionally, Janine knew that, but she always suspected that the poor woman was disgusted by her. She hadn't even thought of Sandy since she met Sherlock. Now that she'd seen how a man _could_ be, if he had the right training, everything Sandy did seemed so boring and low-rent. Men like Sandy had been trained to keep a woman hanging on by subtly criticising, stealthily making them co-dependent. Sandy was passive aggressive and casually insulted her in a way that was generally socially acceptable, if only to the kind of degenerates who thought putting a woman down is the best way to get her into bed. She'd had enough of that kind of thing. Once you knew someone like Sherlock Holmes, you could never go back.

"And did you finish it, or did he - "

"It just kinda petered out naturally. We'd gotten what we wanted out of each other and then we just got bored. I didn't see a reason to try and pursue it. It wasn't the end of the world. He was a bit too into anal anyway."

Two old ladies on the next table struggled to look like they hadn't overheard Janine's words. Inwardly she smirked a bit at having the opportunity to broaden their horizons.

Shakti continued. "Did having sex with this man make you feel any better about your circumstances?"

"This isn't about him, anyway. I've met someone else." Janine looked around the crowded coffee-shop basement. She didn't feel comfortable mentioning his name in public. An involuntary tug at the corner of her mouth began at the very thought of the man in question. "That was him on the phone."

"And you've called me in because you need some kind of intervention? You haven't had intimate relations with him yet?"

"Chance would be a fine thing. He's rather traditional, likes to take things slow."

"Okay," Shakti sipped her coffee.

"I let him kiss me twice now. Thrice if you count a goodnight peck on the lips last night."

"And how does that make you feel?"

"Fecking terrified. _Wonderful_. I haven't felt like this for a years. And that's what's got me rattled really. I was only looking for a shag; I wasn't prepared to be swept of my feet so suddenly, to be romanced. I'd forgotten it could be like this." Janine rubbed her face in fatigue and defeat. "What the hell am I going to do?"

"Well, first of all, don't panic. Those are strong words."

"They're strong feelings. When it's just sex, it's easy y'know, 'cause I know what I'm doing, I'm in control. When it comes to romance, I'm totally lost."

"You're not alone. Many of my clients baulk at the thought of a love relationship." Shakti put her cup back on the saucer. "I think many people in your position feel like they don't deserve what they are experiencing, when they find someone who's genuine and accepts them for who they are, rather than what you can do for them."

_Love._ _She said 'love'_. This wasn't love. You can't fall in love with someone after only knowing them for a week, can you? "I've been so desperate I almost went back on Tinder."

"How does it make you feel when he rejects your offer of sex?"

"Not rejected exactly. He would never make me feel rejected. Frustrated. He's shy. He's different. He makes me want to stick around and find out where this could go, even if he doesn't want to have sex. I've only ever sought out people like myself before."

"So what's changed?"

"I think - I think he's lonely." Janine thought of Sherlock's violin recital at his flat, the sadness in his eyes and his eagerness to please her. The way he'd told her things he'd never even told his best friend. "But he's a recovering addict."

"A sex addict?"

"Narcotics."

"Hmmm," Shakti seemed to think, "I can't tell you what to do Janine, but I do have a duty of care and I think you are vulnerable."

"You think we might just make each other worse?"

"The trouble with having a relationship with another addict, even if it's not the same substance, is that you will often just end up reinforcing one another's negative behaviour. You deal with your emotions by sexualising everything. Substance abusers also have problems regulating their emotions. Now, it's good that this guy doesn't want to have sex with you right away, and it's good that you are considering the other aspects that make a good relationship, but a relationship with an addict isn't easy, and you need to be prepared for that. You've been living in this little microcosm where you didn't have to think about anything emotional for so long."

Janine had already made up her mind that she wasn't going to give up on Sherlock because of his past indiscretions, but did she really want to confront her own problems so soon? "I'm prepared to deal with that when the time comes. Look, this started off as just another one of my little detours, but now that I've gotten to know him, it's become something else. I really like him. I like being around him. I don't want it to end."

Shakti gave her a small smile. "Have you told him you're having psychotherapy for your own addiction?"

"Ughhh. I don't know why I chickened out. He put a lot of trust in me, telling me about his problems, I owe him that much." Her hunt for a sexual partner hadn't seemed to bother him at the wedding, and how he'd even helped her check out the eligibility of the other men in the room_. 'Can I keep you?'_ she'd said, but at that exact moment in time she'd thought he was probably gay; she didn't realise she would be embarking on the most torrid affair of her life.

"I think you need to give 'having a normal relationship' a chance for once, now that you have the opportunity. You may discover a side of yourself that you never knew you had. Get to know this new guy before you consider having sexual intercourse. Share your insecurities, don't give your addiction a place to hide."

_Oh, great, sharing my insecurities. _She could come up with so many excuses not to give this a chance. One of them being the storm that had come over his face when she admitted what Charles had done with the spoon. It was the first time she'd seen him truly angry and it had scared her. There was a fire in his eyes and his face was contorted, ugly even. Yet even through her doubt, it gave her a thrill. There were many shades to human emotion, many seasons in people's lives, and Sherlock was so complicated. There was mystery. There was danger. She wanted more. She'd found herself a new vice.

* * *

Molly unzipped the body bag and gently removed the cloth, placing it respectfully over the groin. There was a moment of stunned silence from the half dozen students gathered around.

One of the youngsters, an extremely tall, gangly strawberry-blond, took four steps back and covered his mouth at his first sight of a real corpse. It was a completely expected reaction. Most of them remained admirably stony-faced, but one or two looked like they were going to vomit.

Molly had given up her weekend to help these prospective medical students, who were nervous about getting their own very own cadaver to dissect come autumn, and Sherlock was watching them through the observation window. The shutter at the top was open so he could hear everything. He could never understand people's attitude to death. Death was a natural part of life, the fact that a person had stopped moving didn't make them any more threatening. It was the living people you had to worry about. He'd been told that people's discomfort was due to having to confront their own mortality, but that didn't make any sense; there was no point in trying to delay the inevitable, and people who couldn't accept that, or hadn't realised that, were not worth his time. Death was going to happen and the best thing people could do was make the best out of it. They must learn from the dead to help the living.

In fact, some of them had been extremely helpful by dying.

"The first day of dissecting a human cadaver is an experience that most physicians will never forget," Molly continued, sensitive to the emotional state of those gathered, "I'll never forget that quiet moment of contemplation and gratitude when we all stood around, a lot like you are now, at that first session in the anatomy lab. Actually taking a knife and cutting into a human body is pretty intimidating. Even though it was a cadaver and I knew there was no pain involved, there was a part of me that worried about inflicting pain. It was irrational, but you do feel irrational; it's a bizarre environment; you're doing a bizarre thing. Every emotion is in such high gear, yet you're strangely calm. The moment that scalpel blade pierced skin, it hit me; how do I detach myself enough to continue cutting what was once a living human being? Up until that moment, everything in my life had been teaching me that it was wrong. But I was _supposed_ to be cutting and learning because I knew that's what she wanted me to do."

"Miss Hooper," one of the girls raised her hand midway, a habit that showed her youth and inexperience, "did you know her name?"

"We weren't allowed to know their real names because they'd donated their bodies confidentially. I didn't think it was appropriate to give her a name even though some of my classmates did. It wouldn't have been respectful. I didn't know who she'd been in life, who she loved, who she was loved by, what she liked to do in her spare time. You can't take someone away from all that and just rename them. There were times though, when I felt regret, especially when I was peeling the skin off her face. I had an unexpected and powerful wave of emotion at one point. It wasn't that I felt sad, per se… to tell you the truth, I don't really know how to describe that particular emotional state. Perhaps only people who have been through it will ever really understand. I'm not sure. But at the end of the course we were allowed to attend the cremation and memorial service for the people who had so generously donated their bodies to science. It was very moving. My friend read out a poem she'd written."

Sherlock couldn't help letting out a snicker at this last remark. He rubbed off the inappropriate smile when Molly's eyes shot up at him. They shared a millisecond of understanding before she turned her attention back to the students.

"When you get your cadavers, they won't look like this. This one's fresh, but the ones you get will be preserved in formaldehyde. There won't be any blood. The tissues will be tough like leather or cooked meat. Your cadaver will become your best friend for the best part of a year. You will find out everything there is to know about the human body, its miracles and its horror. You_will_encounter the bowel contents. You will at some stage have to dissect the genitals, so you'd better be prepared. In fact, if any of you are brave enough, you should go down to the butchers and ask for a foetal pig. Buy yourself some scalpels and have a go at reflecting the skin."

"Miss," another student bravely interrupted, "how did he die?"

"Any one care to take a guess?" Molly gestured toward the torso of the young, male corpse in front of them.

"Gunshot wound?" Strawberry-blond squinted doubtfully.

"That's right."

The rest of the students peered inside the bag in awe. One of them said, "it's so small, so neat. It doesn't look like how I expected at all."

"It's not like it is in the movies." Molly moved around the table, pushing the body bag down further for everyone to see, used to these kind of misconceptions. "There's not a great big spurt of blood and you go flying backwards. The impact isn't spread over a wide area. It's tightly focussed, so there's little or no energy transfer. You stay still... and the bullet pushes through." She demonstrated on herself, pushing her fingers under her ribs, through the lab coat. "That's why bullets are designed like that. They're supposed to be humane. Occasionally we see wounds from bullets that have been filed down. The effect on the human body is amplified somewhat, but it's never the guts and glory you see on TV. Although, I have it on good authority from an army doctor I know, that heavy artillery such as armour piercing rounds have quite a dramatic effect."

"Do you do a lot of forensic stuff?" said one of the girls. Clearly a CSI groupie. Sherlock thought she looked like the most intelligent of the bunch.

"A bit," said Molly, "I tend to split my time between the morgue and biochemistry. Help out at the blood bank when they need it sometimes, too. I volunteer for the anatomy lab when time allows. I see it as a duty to help students with my experience as much as possible, so when I can, I go in and work on prosections."

"What are prosections?" asked CSI.

"Preparing individual organs and limbs for teaching purposes. The other day it was hearts. And let me tell you, holding a human heart in your hands... It's probably the most amazing thing you'll ever do. It's absolutely mind blowing."

Sherlock smiled to himself at the admiration of the teenagers. One of them seemed to be already falling in love with Molly, despite the unmoving figure on the table between them.

"I… I don't know if I'm going to be able to deal with this," said Strawberry-blond, reeling a little at the sight of a man, not that much older than himself, stiff and cold and discoloured in a body bag, "I don't know how you can do this for years and years and stay sane."

"We joke around a lot," said Molly, much to the surprise of the students. "Anyone who isn't in medical school or gone through it simply wouldn't understand. How is it even possible to attempt humour surrounded by the dead? But in many ways, we have to, or else it would drive us mad." She finally zipped up the bag. "The dead have a lot to teach us, about death, yes, but also about life. When you're dissecting a body, it helps you come to terms with the mysteries of life. My dad died when I was in my second year of med school and I know for sure that the work we did in the anatomy lab helped with that. I was with him every second, and when he stopped breathing I held his hand for what felt like hours, just looking at him, trying to memorise all the detail in his wrinkles, his eyelashes, the feel of his skin in my hand. And I realised something; that death wasn't scary or disgusting; the human body could never be disgusting. It's amazing, beautiful. Even in death, it's beautiful."

* * *

"How can something be bitter and bland at the same time?" Sherlock contemplated his mug. "Might actually get into this molecular gastronomy thing."

"Are you... Okay?" Molly peered at him as if he were a specimen in a jar, as they sat down with their uninspiring canteen coffees. She also had a plate of something ambiguously brown. "You left the wedding in rather a hurry."

"Oh, they didn't need me anymore," Sherlock dismissed the idea with a wave, "my part was over, anyway."

"It was beautiful, your waltz." Molly gingerly took a sip of her too-hot drink. "I wish you'd stayed for a dance."

"Social situations. Not really my thing."

"You're going to have to overcome this sooner or later, Sherlock. You have friends, in case you didn't notice, and they're going to want you to do things like go round for dinner and attend other noteworthy occasions."

_Like christenings,_ he thought morosely. Where did she get off being his moral compass? Wasn't that John's job? He felt a stab of guilt at the memory of her voice in his mind, the needle, his veins, the poison… "Spanish inquisition," he muttered, "what about this? This is a social situation, isn't it? I'm doing fine right now. This is all I need."

"This isn't social. It's just _me_," she glared at him. "You'd better not do it at my wedding, that's all I have to say."

"Truth be told, I had work to do. People were relying on me."

"Oh, you have a case?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Anything I can help you with?" she said, only half joking, obviously desiring that he'd include her in whatever was going on in his life right now.

"Actually I wanted to pick your brain about something," he said, leaning forward. "You're… you're a _woman_."

"Guilty as charged." She was trying to be funny again. _Great._ "Was it my small breasts that gave it away?"

"How do you know when someone loves you?"

"What?" Her chin retreated unattractively into her neck.

_Oh, God, I'm going to have to spell it out._ "How do you know when someone _loves_ you? What are the signs?"

"You mean…" she narrowed her eyes, "I don't really know what you mean."

"How can you be sure if someone truly loves you? Come on Molly, it surely can't be that difficult, you are in a relationship."

She seemed to be taken aback then, unsure of what to say. Maybe this concept of loving affection for another human being was too nebulous after all. Too difficult for even the highly educated to define. "What does Tom do that lets you know you truly are the one for him?"

"Um…" now she was looking downright confused. "I'm not quite sure what to say."

"Maybe you're not the right person, then."

"No," she said indignantly, "it's alright. I think it has a lot to do with how the other person respects you, you know. How they genuinely want to know your opinion about things. The fact that they're glad to see you when you come home. He always puts me first. Never manipulates or tries to control. It's in the way he looks into my eyes when we're lying in bed, like I'm the most beautiful thing he's ever seen - "

"Don't you worry about morning breath?"

"What?"

That confused look again. _Good God, was it all so hard to understand? It was a simple question._ "When you're facing each other, first thing in the morning, when he's doing these 'goo-goo' eyes - "

"No," she said, "no I don't worry about my morning breath – what _is_ this?"

"I'm just trying to figure out the intricacies of human relationships. There are a lot of things books can't teach. Like how one gets from A to B. Molly, what exactly does it take to get someone to agree to marry you?"

She pushed her chair back from the table. "I'm not sure I like where this is going."

"Don't leave. There's so much more I need to ask you."

She picked up her plate and cutlery. "I really don't know what's wrong with you." With that she left, shaking her head in exasperation, and Sherlock was left wondering what on earth he'd said or done.


	10. La Quantité inconnue

**_LA QUANTITÉ INCONNUE_**

* * *

_Monday 19th August 2013._

* * *

He'd told her he was working on a case, so _damn, _he actually needed to find a case.

Sherlock lay on the sofa with his computer perched precariously on his solar plexus, while Janine idly poked her nose into the forgotten corners of the living room. He watched her in his peripheral vision and resisted the urge to react when she picked things up and put them back in the wrong place. She ran her fingers lightly over the terracotta soldier on the mantel piece and then moved on to the dead coral on the display case. "Um - " he bit his lip when she picked up the Sudokube from the cluttered table.

"What?" she said.

"Nothing." Sherlock returned to his email.

"Is this," she tossed the cube from hand to hand, "bothering you?"

"Nope."

"Yes it is. Have you ever completed it?"

"Got it down to two minutes and twenty seconds. It's simply a matter of solving the numbers, which is quite difficult considering only one square on each side is fixed - even the world's hardest sudoku has more than _that_ \- while simultaneously employing eight separate algorithms to solve the cube. Oh, and a ninth to turn the numbers the right way up, obviously."

"Obviously," Janine twisted the top layer of numbers out of place and put the cube back not quite where she found it.

Sherlock felt a neuron burst. "Why don't you sit down and read a book?" he blinked, "very unsettling having someone wander around when I'm trying to work."

"I thought we were just gonna chill."

Their Sunday coffee had turned out rather well. Sherlock's fears that he'd pushed her too far, or perhaps shared too much of his personal life, were allayed when she came grinning toward him across St James's park with two cups from BB Bakery in hand. The coffee was milky, but he drank it anyway. He'd apologised profusely and she'd apologised profusely until they'd laughed at themselves and felt like they were on an equal standing again. Whatever connection they had was clearly strong enough to withstand a little blip like Friday night. It was nice to be given the benefit of the doubt for once, but as they reclined on the grass and sipped coffee, watching the world go by like old friends, he couldn't quite quench the subconscious fear that at any second she would laugh at his naiveté, that she would ever fall for such a ridiculous ruse. "I said _you_ could chill. I need to get some work done. I don't have the luxury of nine to five."

"What's this?" Janine moved on to the bookcase, "I thought you said you weren't religious."

Sherlock looked up absently from his typing to see she had _The Nativity Story_ in her hand. "Look inside."

"You've corrected it. In biro."

"When I was six."

"So," she said, replacing the slim book, "you believe in pirates and treasure, but you don't believe in Christmas. Starting to build up a picture now."

"Must you touch everything?" He swung his legs around to a sitting position, balancing the computer on the coffee table. His bare toes found grit on the floorboards. Funny, that.

Janine moved on to a stack of magazines. He maybe should have hidden those. She picked up a few. "What have you been reading?"

"Erm - " Sherlock gave her his full attention.

"And chick flicks?"

"I don't really know what to say." He ruffled his hair.

"Sherlock," she scalded, a DVD case limp in her hand, "is this on account of me?"

"I can explain."

"I'm not stupid. I know what you're up to."

"Wh - "

"You think reading all these magazines will help you understand women." Her tone was only slightly annoyed. And a little disappointed. "That's your fatal flaw. You think people are all the same."

"They are all the same."

Janine almost laughed in disbelief. "How would you feel if someone thought they could understand you from reading a book about the generalisations you could apply to every man?"

"I'd be devastated."

"Exactly."

"But I'm not like other people." Sherlock tried to ignore her amazement. "I'm whoever I want to be. I don't have to stick to the rules."

"And what made you think the magazine editors and Hollywood can help you understand someone as complex as me?"

"The individual person is an insoluble puzzle, but in the aggregate they are a mathematical certainty." He picked up his email where he left off.

"Is that supposed to mean," Janine sashayed closer, "that you can predict what a crowd is going to do, even if you can't predict what one person is going to do?"

"It means," he abandoned the computer, "that - "

But she had reached the coffee table, hands militantly on hips. Sherlock watched in astonishment as she planted one foot on the edge of the table and shunted it aside. The wooden legs screeched on the floor. "Bet you didn't predict that," she said.

"No, I didn't."

"Or this." Then she knelt down in front of him and undid the belt of his dressing gown. He was fully clothed underneath. She'd reached the button on his trousers before he realised what was going on.

"Whoa, whoa-whoa-whoa - "

"What?" She looked up at him and he caught her hands in his.

"What are you doing?"

"What do you think I'm doing? You just seem a little tense. I was gonna suck you off."

"What? I – wha – who the hell groomed you to do this? This is not – it's not accept - "

"Groomed?"

"You don't just - Jesus Christ." Sherlock grabbed a handful of his own hair and smoothed it back down. He couldn't have her going down on him like other people, like – like Sally Donovan and Phillip Anderson – _oh God_, the thought made him sick.

"This is what people do. You don't have to be so - "

"Just get off the floor. This is ridiculous. I'd never ask you to - "

"Oh for feck's sake," Janine brushed off her knees and dropped heavily onto the sofa next to him, "it's just sex. It doesn't mean anything."

"On the contrary," he looked at her, "it means an awful lot."

"It didn't bother you the other day when you were helping me choose a victim. What were you going to do? Lecture me on my wild ways?"

"I only did that because I wanted to watch."

"You what?"

"No," Sherlock squeezed the bridge of his nose, "that's not what I meant. I meant, I was observing human nature, the process of choosing. I'd never..."

She looked at him oddly. "So eloquent."

Sherlock sat not looking at her for a while, thinking what to do. He was totally out of his depth here. Finally he said, "I'll never get any work done with this level of harassment."

"What do you want? Do you want me to go?"

"No." He rose and stripped off the dressing gown; it made him feel ridiculous after, well, after _that_. "I think we need to do this properly."

"Oh really."

"Come on," Sherlock tipped his head toward the bedroom, "I want to show you something."

"Mr Holmes."

With one swift movement, and an involuntary little yelp from her, he'd swept her off her feet. He weighed her in his arms, pretending to stagger a little. "They make this seem so effortless in the movies. You're heavier than you look."

"Thanks," she linked her arms around his neck.

"You should take that as a compliment. It's like picking something up in an antiques shop and finding it's made of gold instead of base metal."

Janine beamed as he carried her to the bedroom. "I'm gold."

"You are one hundred percent, twenty-four carat gold." He inched her through the doorway, dumped her on the bed, lay down beside her and propped himself up on one elbow. The mattress bounced. "You're lovely."

The bedside lamp cast black shadows on the covers and the un-curtained window stared out into the night. Sherlock could see the amber glow of their form ghosted in the glass. Such an odd sight; Sherlock Holmes in bed with a woman, albeit fully clothed and on top of the duvet. Their faces were so close. Janine gave him a lopsided smile. "Hello."

"Hello," he said.

"The Russian guy is staring at us."

"He does tend to do that."

"Who is he?"

"Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev," Sherlock cast his eyes over to the periodic table, "he invented that."

"Right," she said, "I expect you have it memorised by now."

"Weeelll…" he squinted, "yes. But I have a mind to redesign it someday. There must be some way to three dimensionaly factor in the lanthanides and actinides I'm boring you already."

"Actually, I love it when you talk science."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Antimony petriflouride," he growled seductively into her shoulder and they both giggled, "oxidative phosphorylation," she laughed even harder at this, so he continued, "superconducting quantum interference - "

"Stop it - "

"Inorganic streptomycin synthesis. See, you're producing oxytocin already."

When their mirth subsided they lay still, watching each other, sharing one of those moments that only came when you weren't expecting them, but lasted forever. It would drift down through his timeline like gold dust, a memory suspended in a beam of light, until it finally faded at the close of his life. Her eyes, her lips, the tiny lines that betrayed her readiness to laugh, the way her brows faded into her temples and became darker nearer the hairline. _So this is what it feels like_, he thought.

Janine was the first to break eye contact. "I went a bit too far back there."

"Yep."

"Sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I forget some people aren't as forward in that kind of thing."

It was not that he was shy about sex, just surprised that people were so blunt about it, Molly saying _'we're having quite a lot of sex'_, like it was a badge of honour. "If a physical relationship is your ultimate goal in every liaison, that's a little short sighted. What's your _raison d'etre_? What do you want out of life? Sex alone is not going to last, is it?"

"My ultimate goal is my own pleasure and to avoid falling in love at all costs. There's nothing wrong with that."

Sherlock draped an arm around her waist and shuffled her a little closer so that their whole bodies were touching. Hip to hip. "At all costs?"

"At all costs."

"We'll see about that." He raised her free arm above her head and began to stroke his fingers all the way down, avoiding the plaster on her spoon-burn, of course. She shivered at first but somehow managed to resist the temptation to move. They held each other's gaze the whole time. There was no mystery in her eyes. It was perfectly clear to Sherlock what she wanted, what she expected to happen next. His touch moved further down, over her biceps and past the axilla, her skin shuddering and flinching involuntarily as she closed her eyes, savouring the moment. The sensation of being close to another human was something he'd buried deep in his subconscious, the warmth radiating from an alive body, the aroma of the skin's natural oils, the chemicals and cosmetics. The elusive quality that made her a _woman_. He had that feeling again, the biology he couldn't escape. Rising, forming, undulating with the fall of her breath. He was designed to want the person he was close to, spent time with. It was no good.

There was a ratcheting sound and a click as he closed the handcuff on her wrist. Janine opened her eyes and looked up. "How the hell did you manage that?"

"Not my first time." Sherlock levered himself off the bed and surveyed his handiwork. She was wavering between pissed-off and admiration, firmly cuffed to the bedstead. _Well played, Old Chap, well played. _But he couldn't subdue the echoes of the last time a woman was in his bed. _The_ Woman, damp and clean and soft and smelling so, so good. Stripped of her usual attire and wrapped in his dressing gown, the very one he'd discarded just now in the living room. But this was an entirely different situation, he'd invited Janine here, he had the upper hand, he was in control. Control. Control. _Control..._

"You can't just leave me here," Janine called as he left the bedroom.

"You have one hand free. I'm sure you can think of a way to pass the time."

As he sat on the sofa and picked up the computer, he could hear her testing the cuffs and moving around the bed. He smiled to himself and began typing.

_"You bastard, Holmes,"_ her voice drifted in from the bedroom.

"I did warn you that I needed to knuckle down and work," he bellowed, "this is the only way."

_"What if your landlady walks in?"_

"I'm willing to take that chance," he shouted back, "it wouldn't be the strangest thing she's seen."

He heard her pull on the cuffs one more time and let out a "_grrrnnhhh_" of defeat. Then she went quiet.

This was the perfect opportunity to go through her handbag. It was sitting invitingly on the side table and he peered in the top. He gingerly pulled the black leather open a bit more. The first thing was a thick sheaf of papers, roughly bound with treasury tags. Nothing of consequence. Next, a small make-up bag. He pulled on nitrile gloves from his pocket. One could never be too careful about where one left fingerprints. A packet of anti-bacterial wipes. The notebook he'd seen her produce at the Tower. A quick flick through it showed that it was only private thoughts, shopping lists, doodles, nothing work-related. _Ah, here we are_, an ID card threaded onto a lanyard. Too soon to lift anything, but they were making progress. Various pieces of lint, Polo wrappers and a sewing kit later, and he'd pretty much analysed her entire life from the contents.

He replaced the bag, snapped off the gloves and returned to work.

Twenty minutes passed and he'd made some good headway with the leads and had three potential cases lined up. A woman whose teenage son had changed personality over night, an older man who had returned to his office to find a piece of supposedly alien technology on the floor only moments after visiting the toilet, and the most promising; a racehorse owner who had not only had a horse vanish into thin air, but whose stable manager had been killed by the alleged 'Black Beast of Utoxeter'. Janine had been quiet for some time and he started to worry that she was Okay. Taking his pen out of his mouth he closed the computer once and for all and wandered back to the bedroom.

The covers were crumpled but Janine was nowhere to be seen.

Sherlock returned to the living room to find her settled in her chair – _John's_ chair - with an open book in her hands. "How did you - " he began.

"Not my first time." She didn't even look up from the book as she dangled the handcuffs out for him to take. She was suppressing a smirk of victory.

"Huh," Sherlock grunted to himself. He'd clearly underestimated this woman. The book she'd chosen from his shelf was Nietzsche's_ Thus Spake Zarathustra. _"How is it?"

"Good," she looked up, "but I prefer Common's translation."

"Fancy supper?"

She looked at her phone. "It's getting late." She folded the book and gathered her things. "It's been a long day and I wanna get some rest before our big date."

"Right," said Sherlock as she stretched to give him a peck on the cheek.

"Oh, I almost forgot," she dug in her bottomless handbag, bringing out the manuscript, "this is for you."

"Your book," Sherlock tried to sound interested, "goody. Okay, well, have a lovely sleep - "

"Don't stay up too late, Science Boy." And with that she was gone.

Sherlock stood with the manuscript in one hand and the handcuffs in the other for quite a while after she'd left. _Scanning system error memory dump files. _What had actually just happened? Things he hadn't anticipated. Things that made him feel uncomfortable, yet he didn't want to stop experiencing. _Don't delete, don't delete, don't delete -_

He could only work with the facts he had, he didn't work well with unknown quantities. This woman, he remarked to himself, didn't fit any of the categories he had stored in his head, and she could well be his undoing if he didn't get a grip.

The coffee table was still where Janine had left it and he tossed the manuscript and the handcuffs onto it, knelt down on the floor and brushed his fingertips over some of the grit. It stuck, as he expected, and he examined it closely. _Quartz sand. Particles of tellin shell_. He licked a bit. _Salty._

Someone had been here and sat on his sofa, like Goldilocks perhaps, spilling evidence of the seaside from the turn-ups on their jeans.

He was still turning this over in his mind when his phone rang.

"Greg," he said.

_"I'm flattered."_

"Don't get excited, it's the law of averages. Had to happen sometime." Sherlock brushed off his knees, just as Janine had done.

_"I'm calling to let you know about Major Sholto."_

"What about Major Sholto?" Sherlock went to the kitchen and took a mug down from the shelf.

_"Well, he's out of hospital - "_

"Oh, that's good. Good, good." Sherlock reached for the kettle and filled it, holding the phone with his shoulder.

_"And he's up for us pressing charges against Small, so you'll probably be needed to give evidence."_

"Fine, no problem," said Sherlock distractedly as he made coffee, "what's one more court appearance?"

There was silence for a few seconds.

_"Sherlock, are you… Okay?"_

"Yes of course," he stirred in sugar, "why wouldn't I be?"

_"I don't know, you sound… happy."_

"I'm not allowed to sound happy?"

_"Well, yeah, of course you are, but this is you we're - Have you spoken to John?"_

"He posted a comment about my guest blog. They're having a great time, apparently. I didn't think it would be appropriate to interrupt their moment of bliss."

_"That's not – never mind. You know he's going to be back in a couple of days, yeah?"_

"Yes, of course." Sherlock took his coffee back to the living room and put it down on the table by the window. He pushed the curtain aside and looked down at the street, as if he could sense the trail left by Janine's presence as she left.

_"As long as you're alright."_

"Are you checking up on me?"

_"Fancy meeting up for a… you know, for a pint?"_

"I'm fine. I'm being productive and I'm happy. Would you do me the courtesy of not treating me like _un incompétent."_

_"I wouldn't have to if you didn't act like one sometimes."_

"Goodbye, Greg."

* * *

Sherlock lit up, smoke curling into the night as he leaned back on the retaining wall by the steps. The Thames lapped thirstily at the quay under London Bridge, distorting the city lights.

"Did you get the mobile phone like I told you?" he said into the air when he felt a presence.

High heeled shoes shuffled uncomfortably on the other side of the wall and he could tell that she was unused to this kind of thing; late night meetings, hiding in the dark. "Sent my valet," she said, "paid cash, just as you instructed Mr - "

"_Don't_," he said rather brusquely, "say my name out loud. Only use that phone to call me from now on. If you suspect anyone else has found it, destroy it at once and get another one. You'll have to memorise my number."

Lady Smallwood shifted on the other side of the wall. "Are you certain we're not being watched?"

"You _are_ being watched. If anyone asks, you came down to the water's edge to clear your head. I'm standing in the only place the CCTV cannot reach. Came by river."

"Please," she said after a while, "tell me you're making progress. I don't believe Henry has very much longer. His fate is, as you know, tied closely with the tribunal."

"I've made contact with Magnussen's PA," Sherlock took another drag on the cigarette, flicking ash into the river, "I think he's abusing her on a regular basis, so it shouldn't take too long to get her to betray him."

Lady Smallwood's relief was almost palpable. "Thank you," she said, and because she couldn't say his name, she said it again, "_thank_ you."

"But," Sherlock continued, "I'm going to need… expenses. The risks I'm taking, I - "

"Of course, whatever you need - "

"This is probably the most dangerous case I've ever accepted."

"I appreciate that. But I have no choice. You mustn't – I can't - " To anyone else it would seem that she was praying.

"Please," Sherlock soothed, "don't sound so desperate. It's unbecoming of your Ladyship."

"Just. Don't. Let him… Henry won't survive this," she uttered into the night, and Sherlock thought he heard a tear, "you must stop him by any means possible."

"Any means possible? Those are strong words. Are you sure you know what you are asking?"

"_Any_ means possible, are we clear?"

"In that case, there's something else."

"Like I said, whatever you need."

"I need some sort of protection."

"Protection?"

"I need a guarantee that you'll do everything within your power to protect me from legal prosecution. No one can find out that I helped you, especially - "

"Oh, you needn't worry about _him_. He may be ubiquitous, but he's certainly not omnipotent. Even he can't override the justice minister."

"I need a guarantee!" Sherlock roared.

Lady Smallwood fell silent once again. If she was at all offended by Sherlock's outburst, she would never show it. The sounds of the night reflected off the water. "You have my promise," she said, "you will not be held accountable, no matter what happens."

"Thank you," he said restoring calm, "now text me the number of that burner. You have to go."

* * *

The handle rattled and the lock clicked.

The door to Janine's tiny flat opened but it was not Janine who entered. An anorak clad figure stealthily circumvented the living area and made his way over to the French windows. Closing the curtains with gloved hands, the figure then proceeded to hunt through every drawer and container in the kitchenette.

A lamp came on and the man flinched, startled, but it had only come on because of the timer.

He breathed a sigh of relief and moved onto the drawers in the dressing table. They were stuffed with samples of cosmetics and tiny bottles of toiletries from hotels.

Shoving the drawer closed in disappointment, he almost knocked a vase of flowers over, but righted it at just the right moment. A little water spilled on the dressing table and he looked around for something to clean it up. Heading to the kitchen counter for a tea towel, he realised his mistake and froze; there was a jangle of keys as the mistress returned home.

Janine bustled in, just as she usually did, dropping her keys into the dish on the phone table and not noticing him at first. Then she looked up, her eyes like jewels in the half light. "Sandy - "

They stood breathing hard and looking at each other, she in shock and he in dismay at being discovered.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know where else to turn."

She saw now that he was in a bad way, tired, dirty and dishevelled, and he hadn't had a haircut in many months. Something was wrong. "You can't just break in here – I haven't heard from you for months, I - "

"I didn't break in," Sandy stopped her in her tracks, "I had a key."

"You had - " she stared at him.

"You really need some kind of security around here," his arm went to his abdomen, cradling it as if he were injured, "I could've been an assailant."

He invited himself to sit down on her sofa, but Janine stayed rooted to the spot. She could see that he was much thinner than when she last saw him. The last time they… "You're lucky I didn't hurt you. You scared the bejaysus out o'me." One of the kitchen drawers was still a little bit open. "What were you looking for?"

Sandy hung his head. "Money."

Calming down a bit, she went and sat next to him. "Is that all?"

"I didn't know if you were coming back." He looked pensive, worried.

"What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into?"

"I can't tell you. You just have to trust me."

"We don't have that kind of relationship." _No,_ she thought,_ you haven't earned it._

He put his face in his hands and sobbed.

Janine didn't know what to do. This was not the man she knew. She tentatively put out an arm to comfort him, as one would a casual acquaintance, not a lover. "Why did you come here, Sandy?"

"I think I'm going to die."

His words hung in the air like a lead weight. Janine shifted on the sofa. She didn't need this right now. He seemed to recover then, wiped his face and ran his nose along his forearm. Janine didn't have time to reach for a tissue before he shrugged off her arm and stood up. "This was a bad idea." He straightened his jacket and tapped his thigh apprehensively, waiting for her to say something. "I'd better go."

"Don't - "

"No, It's better for everyone this way. Forget you saw me."

"Sand - " she began, but his hand was already on the door.

She let him go.

That night, as she lay in bed tossing and turning and wishing it wasn't so sticky and stormy, she wondered if he was going to be Okay and what on earth had him so scared.


	11. Téméraire

**TÉMÉRAIRE**

* * *

_"They had not spoken, but they felt allured,_

_As if their souls and lips each other beckoned,_

_Which, being joined, like swarming bees they clung -_

_Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey sprung" _

_~Lord Byron~_

* * *

_Tuesday 20th August 2013_

* * *

Janine was woken not by her alarm, as she expected, but by the ringtone for 'Global Communications'. She reached out for her phone on the night-stand, eyes still mostly closed, and groaned when she saw that it was 5:56. Sweeping strands of hair from her face, she answered, "Sherlock, y' loon. It's not even six. What're y' trying to do to me?"

_"I'm sorry, __I couldn't wait to talk to you, it's about your book - "_

"What?" She sat up a bit more and her eyes began to adjust to the light. "I only left you six hours ago. You couldn't possibly have read two hundred and fifty thou - "

_"Oh, I didn't start it 'til three - "_

"Have you slept at all?"

_"No, but it doesn't matter. This really is superb, Janine, I mean - "_

"Try not to sound so surprised - "

_"Just astonishing."_

"You really mean that?"

He fell silent for a moment and Janine fell back to the pillows, rubbing sleep from her eyes. He was like a hyperactive child, but despite her fatigue, she couldn't muster any animosity toward him.

_"I'm doing it again,"_ he said finally.

"Mmm?" Janine had nodded off, as she was wont to do at this unearthly hour, lost in a reprise of the dream she'd been shaken from minutes ago. Something about having to find all the glass objects in an antiques shop, but it was fading once more. "You did what?"

_"I'm buying you breakfast as an apology."_

"Okay, just let me rake a comb through my hair." She began to rouse herself properly now, hanging her free arm over the edge of the bed and trying to make it work properly.

_"Unless you'd rather - "_

"S'alright, I'm up now anyway."

They signed off and Janine busied herself with getting ready, but still she had trouble shaking off the unease of last night's encounter with Sandy. Even the sunrise, bringing with it that peculiar feeling you had when you'd woken too early, or even - heaven forbid - slept outside, couldn't warm her up. Usually it was a golden feeling, a being-young-and-free feeling, but now it felt more like an omen.

* * *

"Danuta's a self-confessed psycho-bitch-from-hell and Preeti has no taste whatsoever." Janine waited patiently for a young couple to shepherd their offspring safely through the door of the Riding House Café. "I, on the other hand, was born with good taste, that's why I don't wear sequins."

"I think sequins have a place," Sherlock held the door for her, ever the gentleman.

"Yeah, on a Mumbai taxi." She was talking too much, she knew it, over-compensating for the chill Sandy had left her with, trying in vain to throw Sherlock off the scent. If he'd noticed something was wrong, he hadn't mentioned it. "This is nice."

The host showed them to their table.

"I really should apologise for getting you up so early," Sherlock peered over the menu, "in fact, I should apologise for the general intensity of the activities so far. Like I said, I don't really do this dating thing."

She squinted at him affectionately, "aw, you're doin' alright, but I have to warn you, I'll need to shoot off early this afternoon, I'm flying out to Singapore tomorrow."

"Frankly, that's a bit of an over-reaction."

"Not because of you, y'numpty" she laughed, "it's for work. Charles has his eye on this local publication and they've finally… you don't wanna hear all this, we're supposed to be on a date."

"No, really, it's fine." Sherlock looked down. "You're, uh, going with 'him'?"

"It's business class. It's not like we'd be knocking knees," she said as the waiter appeared at her elbow, "besides, I've decided I'm gonna mace him if he tries it on again."

"Coffee, black, two sugars," Sherlock said pointedly, obviously hoping she would take the hint about making him drink a latte on Sunday, "one soft boiled egg and one slice of white toast with the butter all the way to the edges. Very important that the butter goes all the way to the edges. And no snotty stuff in the egg. It must have a runny yolk and the white must be set all the way to the middle but not over-cooked."

The waiter narrowed his eyes almost imperceptibly, holding back his frustration at all the awkward customers the world had ever inflicted upon him. "I'm positive the chef knows how to boil an egg, but I'll personally ensure they get it right for you, sir."

"Thank you. What about you, Janine?"

Janine was still making her mind up, "I think I'll haaave…" she said slowly, which clearly irritated all the Y chromosomes in the vicinity, "thuuuh… Full and Proper with the fruit platter on the side. And coffee."

"Americano," the waiter droned, "latte, cappu - "

"Latte, full fat, just make it as evil as possible. Oh, Sherlock, I feel bad now, you with your one egg - "

"It's fine, don't be silly - "

"At least let me get the bill, I can't expect - "

"Not at all, you're saving for a house, remember."

"You told your brother you were skint."

"Of course I did. I enjoy conning him out of large sums."

They'd almost forgotten about the waiter. "Will that be all?" he said flatly, removing the menus from the table almost pugnaciously.

"Thank you," said Sherlock.

"Someone's hungover," Janine whispered behind her hand when the waiter had left them.

"Had a late one. He's got an ultraviolet stamp from the basement at Heaven." Sherlock rubbed the back of his own hand.

"Heaven?"

"It's a gay club in Soho - "

"And how do you know so much about it?"

"It is just around the corner from mine."

When coffee arrived Janine started on it immediately, grateful for the caffeine. "Ughhh, that is sooo good." When she looked up, Sherlock was laughing silently at her. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing, it's just that I've never met anyone quite so in love with life," he picked up a napkin and passed it to her, "and you have a moustache."

She swiped off the foam. "I've never met anyone quite like you either. No one on this whole earth's a mystery to you, are they?"

"You mean the waiter?" Sherlock blew across the top of his coffee. "It's quite simple. People wear their lives like trophies, shark's teeth hanging around their necks, notches on the butt of their Winchesters, only in our society it's things like ticket stubs, pet hair and the instep of their shoes."

Janine looked across at the table by the window. An old man sat there, not talking to his wife. "Do them," she said.

"_'Do'_ them?" Sherlock feigned ignorance as the breakfast arrived.

"You know," she said, cutting up bacon like a falcon falling on prey, "deconstruct them, like a suspect."

"It's not a parlour trick."

"And there I was thinking…" Janine fluttered her eyelashes at him, chewing a crust of toast doused in yolk. The creaminess of a perfect egg and crisp bacon fat, washed down with hot coffee, was almost worth the rude awakening.

"Oh, alright then," Sherlock sighed, but she knew he was enjoying this really. A man like him never missed an opportunity to show off. He lowered his voice slightly, "they're from out of town, judging from the traces of mud, Kent, by the looks of it. They're only here for the day; if they were staying in a hotel he would've cleaned the shoes. So why are they here? Visiting relatives? Why aren't they joining them for brunch then? Much more likely to do some shopping or the theatre. Theatre? No, look at their clothes; not an ounce of taste between them, no-one wears a fleece to the theatre. She's wearing a silver brooch of the Egyptian cat goddess Bastet, you can only get that at the British Museum, which is just around the corner. Highly likely they visit often and intend to go there today. But why? There aren't any special exhibitions on, maybe she just likes it, maybe they have sentimental reasons, maybe that's where they first met, maybe the reason they aren't talking isn't because they don't like each other after thirty years of marriage, but because they do. Everyone needs someone they don't feel they have to talk to. Why this restaurant in particular? It isn't the type of place people like them would walk into off the pavement, the website describes it as a 'modern brasserie' and it's booked up well in advance. Special occasion, then. The style of her engagement ring is from the seventies and she's never taken it off. Probability is, it's their anniversary today. Could they be any more pedestrian?"

During his monologue, Janine had managed to consume most of her bacon and had started on the fruit. She gave him a second to catch his breath and then said, "do you know their names?"

"Caught a glimpse of his credit card when he was paying."

"Like a hawk," Janine paused with a slice of pink grapefruit to her lips, "go on then, prove it?"

"Do what?" Sherlock blinked.

"Prove it. Put your money where your mouth is. Look, they're getting ready to leave. Now's your opportunity to really impress me."

"Have me rolling over and playing dead before long," Sherlock muttered as he threw down his napkin and prepared to go over to the couple. They were already putting their coats on. Janine watched as Sherlock put a different face on and held out his hand, "Mr Reynolds! How lovely to see you again!"

"Um," Mr Reynolds looked to his wife for answers, shaking Sherlock's hand limply, "hello?"

Janine pressed her lips together to keep from laughing.

"And Mrs Reynolds!" Sherlock took the woman's hand and shook that too. He was putting on a marvellous performance. Janine could almost believe he was someone else entirely. "Don't you remember me? It's Billy from the British Museum."

Something like recognition was beginning to dawn on Mr Reynolds face, which was funny, thought Janine, because they really don't know each other. It was beginning to dawn on Janine that Sherlock was one of those people who could bend others to his will as easily as breathing. If he'd chosen another path he might have made an Oscar winning actor or an even more effective con-artist.

"Gosh," Sherlock was saying, "I haven't seen you since your anniversary. Actually, let me think, it must be your anniversary today!"

"Thirty-five years," said Mrs Reynolds as if they had known each other all their lives.

"Surely not," Sherlock still held onto her hand, and he looked her up and down, looking at Mr Reynolds for approval, "she doesn't look a day over fifty."

Mrs Reynolds blushed and took back possession of her hand, fiddling bashfully with her purse, "oh, really…"

Mr Reynolds searched his memory, shaking a finger at Sherlock, "you were giving a guided tour of the… the…"

"The Benin Bronzes," Sherlock finished for him, "must say, you two are such a fixture at the museum, you're in danger of becoming exhibits yourselves." Here he gave a little laugh that was so unlike him that Janine found it hard not to burst out laughing. "So, how's…"

"Daniel," said Mrs Reynolds, smugly, "coming up for a big promotion."

"Oh, how wonderful," gushed Sherlock, "what was the name of his company again?"

"Gupta, Allen and Allen," boomed Mr Reynolds proudly.

"Well," said Sherlock, "I'll be sure to call on them if I ever…"

"Have an accident at work," finished Mrs Reynolds.

"Of course," Sherlock began his escape, the subtle changes in expression and posture that prescribed an elaborate social dance, "well, it's been lovely catching up."

"We'll see you at the museum?" Mr Reynolds seemed to be only just warming to Sherlock.

"I'm not working today, but have a lovely time, won't you."

"Of course," Mrs Reynolds echoed Sherlock's words, "lovely seeing you again."

"You too," Sherlock resumed his place at their table, muttering, "lovely, lovely."

"Happy anniversary," Janine called. When the Reynolds were safely out of earshot, she finally allowed herself to laugh, "Billy?"

"Why not?" Sherlock snapped back to his usual self.

"I thought the skull was 'Billy'."

"Apparently," Sherlock said, "nearly everyone is."

"You really had them, didn't you?"

"A few more minutes and they would've told me their entire life story. Who knows what would've happened."

"You'd probably be moving in within a week." Janine drained the last of her coffee. "You know the name of their son now, and his firm of lawyers. You could take them for everything they had if you were so inclined. Interesting to see how it's done."

"It's probably not as hard as people think. It just requires intense focus."

"Now you're selling yourself short." Janine finished the last scraps of the fruit and rearranged her cutlery. "You know, you don't have to indulge me everything I ask."

"I like showing off." The way he said it was neither arrogant, nor embarrassed. "Besides, I thought you wanted to solve crimes."

"Yes, but - "

"This is part of your training."

"Training? Sherlock, I thought this was just us, trying to get to know each other." Janine was lightly annoyed at the matter-of-fact manner in which he delivered the news that she was just his latest protégé, as if it was obvious, as if no-one would have anything to say to the contrary, least of all her. _'Training'? Jaysus_. All the flirting, all the looking into each other's eyes, was that all just part of him getting her on board as yet another assistant? Another John? _Should walk away right now_, she thought, scared to death that she might get involved in things she had no business doing, forgiving things that shouldn't be forgiven. Even trusting him. The only way to fix it would be to hold her tongue and get 'it' out of the way as soon as possible. Get in, get off, get out. Once they'd shagged, she wouldn't want him any more and she could walk away. But looking at the man across from her now, with all his cleverness and class, in the split second it took to think all these things, she'd made up her mind. She had to give him a chance. She wanted to stop being so hard-hearted and let herself fall. It was like he'd begun to wake something up inside of her. She would have to find out where this went, this meandering method of learning the business, learning him. She could actually snag herself one of the country's most promising bachelors. Either that, or it would result in a bidding war for one helluva kiss and tell story. "Maybe I shouldn't have said anything about helping you solve crimes. I didn't know you were just on the lookout for another PA."

"Not at - I wouldn't – Janine - "

"Because it sounds like that's all you want from this." She sat back and waited for a reply, but he said nothing for a while, his eyes flitting across the table from item to item, searching his brain for some kind of justification. It was clear to her that he really was not all that well versed in this kind of thing, which made her like him more, and more likely to forgive this, if anything.

Finally, he spoke. "I just wanted you to catch a glimpse of my world and the only way to do that is to come on the journey… I - I've really messed this process up, haven't I? Not painting a great picture. First the incident with my brother, the shouty thing, then the handcuffs – I didn't want you to think – if that's what I've made you think - "

"It's no biggie, Sherl. I'm not nearly as ticked off as I should be. Probably because you're so pretty." This elicited a lopsided smile from the man. She could see the relief in his eyes. "People date people who say and do stupider things than you do, and people date people who like each other less than we do, so I'd say we're alright. But just – like I said, I like to have my eyes open when I get into things. If this is just you auditioning an assistant, tell me now, so at least we haven't wasted each other's time."

"Janine," he said very calmly, very deliberately, "this is only about you. It's only ever been about you. I really am sor - "

"_Stop_ apologising," she glared at him, "and take me somewhere."

* * *

"Murder," Sherlock said as they climbed the front steps of Saint Paul's, "that's some pretty strong stuff. And not all that common."

"Seems pretty common to me," Janine removed her shades as they passed into the vestibule.

"The probability that your cause of death will be homicide is extremely low. It takes a lot for the average jilted lover to overcome those deep seated moral values. Assuming, of course, that they had them in the first place."

"Are all killers psychopaths?"

"Most homicides are crimes of passion, or gang related. Not all killers are psychos and not all psychos are killers, but there is more overlap than you'd expect from sheer chance."

"What would drive someone to ignore the impulses of a lifetime and actually plunge a knife into another's flesh?"

"I have a pretty good idea. Statistically most domestic victims are murdered by their spouse." Sherlock held the inner door open for her. He hoped he was getting it right. It was so difficult to keep up with what was acceptable nowadays. One minute it was considered rude not to hold the door, rise when a lady entered the room etc., the next it seemed to have gotten too complicated; people got offended at things they really shouldn't. It was easier to stick to what one already knew, then it became an integral part of the persona one was attempting to project. 'Sherl' always held the door, even if 'Sherlock' sometimes dispensed with the protocol for time and sanity's sake.

"Y'Know, you can be really romantic sometimes," Janine teased.

He was just about to say something witty - the exact words unknown until they actually came out of his mouth - when he realised she wasn't paying attention. She was looking up, captivated by the interior of the cathedral. He left her alone to marvel at her surroundings while he went over to see young Hayden.

Hayden was just finishing up handing out iPods to a gaggle of gormless tourists when he sneaked up behind her. "Sherlock Holmes, as I live and breathe!" She wheeled around on him and he expertly weaved to avoid a well-aimed play-punch.

"Not so loud," he stage-whispered, "don't want everyone knowing I'm here."

"And still no funnier I see." Hayden put her hands on her hips. "What can we help you with today?"

At that moment, Janine noticed that he'd abandoned her and came over to see what all the fuss was about. "Is there anyone in this city you don't know?"

"Janine, I'd like you to meet Hayden Hayden, expert in the non-specific - "

"And all round expert on the dome, pun intended." Hayden stuck out her hand for Janine to shake, which she did.

"Your first name," Janine began doubtfully, "is the same as your last name."

"Yes, why?"

"Nothing."

"Well, this is nice," said Sherlock, unhelpfully.

"So," Janine said, "did he solve a crime for you, or what?"

Hayden looked briefly at Sherlock before answering, "it's a, uh… long story. Maybe he'll tell it to you some time." She gave Janine a wink and lifted the red rope barrier.

Tourists at the head of the queue were visibly put out that someone was getting in without paying. Anything that offended people's sense of propriety gave him a kick. "We were never here, Okay," Sherlock whispered as they ducked under the rope.

Hayden stopped him, tipping her head, as Janine wandered into the huge empty vaulted nave of the cathedral, "didn't know you went in for that kind of thing."

"We were _never_ here," was all he could give her in return.

He caught up with Janine, who was already getting a crick in her neck from ogling the ceiling.

"A pattern is starting to form," she said.

"How so?"

"We meet at an altar, you kiss me in a crypt and now here - "

"It wasn't intentional, I promise." He took her hand – _still not used to that_ – and pulled her toward the dome.

"Oh," she breathed, "wow."

"Yeah."

"I mean – nothing prepares you, does it?"

He couldn't help smiling at her turning around and around like a child under the gigantic mosaic hemisphere. Saints and sinners were the mute audience of his charade. _Leave me alone_, he warned their accusing stone eyes. "Want to go up there?"

"Really?"

"Come on."

So they began the two hundred and fifty-seven steps to the Whispering Gallery. Janine seemed to be holding up Okay, despite her allegedly killer heels. They emerged onto the vertiginous catwalk running around the interior of the dome, holding onto the edge and looking down at the miniature scene below.

"Whooo," Janine breathed, "now I know why my calves hurt so much."

"We're only half of the way up," Sherlock placed a hand on the cool, curved stone wall. "They call this the Whispering Gallery. If you stand on the other side, it's said, you can hear the faintest whisper clear as day."

Janine joined him and placed a hand on the wall next to his. It was so small in comparison. She wiggled a finger into a round hole. "What are all these holes for?"

"Nothing to do with whispering," he smiled, "it's for when they measure subsidence with a laser."

"One of these days," Janine removed her finger from the hole, "I'm going to ask you a question and you won't know the answer."

"I doubt it," he said, but she'd moved away, trailing her hand along the stone wall as she perused the mosaics above.

An old man, hitherto unnoticed by Sherlock, was leaning on the cool stone, recovering from the stairs. He jutted his chin toward Janine, who was nearly on the opposite side of the gallery. "World class beauty, that one."

Sherlock turned his head. "I'm only with her for her mind."

"Oh, it's like that, is it?" said the old man. "Have you been married long?"

"We're not married," Sherlock held up his left hand, showing the lack of a ring.

"You want to hold onto that one. Mark my words." The old man shuffled off.

What was so obvious that it could be seen by an unobservant old tourist, even in the moments he wasn't putting it on? Some things even the blind could see. He was suffering the symptoms of the disease. Maybe this had gone too far already; he'd had opportunities to extract as much information out of her as he could, yet he'd procrastinated. Perhaps it was out of respect, but that didn't sound like him. No, it was because he was allowing himself to get involved, just this once, because he knew it would end, knew it was safe. He needed to rein himself back in, remember the implausibility of being in an actual relationship. He was a machine that solved puzzles, for God's sake, like that decryption device Mummy made in Oxford in 1968, just to prove a point. Even in the frankly unsuccessful connections he had made in his previous life as a student, it was more like expecting a computer to go out on a date, dressed up and sitting in a restaurant making small talk. How absurd. Yet, despite all his logic, he was still in a state of flux, phasing between playing the part and indulging himself in this ridiculous fantasy.

Sherlock caught Janine's eye over on the other side of the gallery, mimed for her to put her ear to the wall. She smiled and cupped her hand around her ear.

He pressed his cheek up against the curved wall and whispered.

_I think I'm falling for you_.

If, for some reason, the curvature of the wall failed to convey his message, or perhaps if he hadn't correctly calculated the assonance of his confession, and she didn't hear, there was always the deafening _thwump-thwump_ of his heart.

Even at this distance he could see the effect it had on her. She jolted her head away from the wall and blinked once, startled. A smile crept into her features and she mouthed back.

_Me too._

* * *

"And I said, 'you do realise _Les Mis_ contains a very graphic scene of a man diving to his death from a multi-story building?'. Good times." Sherlock leaned his back on the high balustrade with his hands in his pockets. They were malingering at the very top of the dome, with the wind ruffling their hair, looking down at the ants below. Other tourists came and went, succumbing to vertigo, or just plain boredom.

"Poor Mike," Janine laughed. John Watson had gotten Sherlock all wrong. Far from unemotional, he actually felt things very deeply; he just didn't know how to express it. The fact that he worked a lot of cases pro bono showed Janine that he was in fact an extraordinarily compassionate man. "Doesn't it worry you being up this high?"

"What, like I get the urge to jump?"

"I suppose," she shrugged.

"Occasionally. I'm told there's a proper psychological condition that makes people want to jump whenever they're on a ledge. Lemming syndrome or something."

"Okay, question number three; biggest regret in life?"

"Is that how you want to get to know me?"

"It's a standard dating question."

"You might not like the answer."

"Try me."

Sherlock took his time, squinting into the sun, taking in the vista of London, his London. "There was a young woman named Soo Lin Yao. She was a ceramics expert at the museum." He paused to let this sink in. "Moved here from China to get away from the triads. They had her trafficking drugs and God-knows-what since she was a child."

"That's terrible."

"It was." At this point he rubbed his face and swallowed. "I told her everything was going to be alright, but I let her down. We left her, John and I, we left her on her own."

"What happened?" Janine crept her hand into his, almost unnoticed.

"Her own brother shot her in the face."

"Oh, God."

"If I could do one thing differently."

"You weren't to know." Janine gave his hand a firm squeeze and he didn't try to get out of it like he usually did.

"I should have known. It's my job to know. He was in the room with her the whole time, just waiting in the dark, listening to our conversations. What - what if the situation arises again and I get it wrong? What if I can't save someone I care about? I can't afford to make mistakes like that if I'm operating at the top of my game - "

"Hey," she touched his face, "it's Okay. You can't be expected to solve the whole world's problems. No-one can live with that amount of pressure. And she died knowing someone was on her side, that someone was trying, someone cared."

"Does caring make a difference? I'm not convinced."

Janine removed an errant strand of hair from her mouth and released his hand. "It's a much better motivator than pure cold logic."

"When you say it like that, it does sound rather cynical," he half-laughed.

"Having someone care, I mean, love - a _connection_, is what most people in this world crave, don't they? Do you really look down on them so much?"

"Them?"

"Us. I mean us," Janine caught herself.

"You said 'them', like we're exempt."

"We have more in common than you think, Sherl. You collect people who owe you favours, like that girl downstairs. I collect people too, but only if they're going to come in handy one day. Now I have my very own detective to add to my collection."

"Love is over rated anyway," Sherlock made way for a passing gawper, narrowing his eyes, "I don't know why I just said that. It's not the right thing to say."

"No, I know what you're trying to say," Janine held onto the railings, testing them like a child, "'love' is so incorporeal, so indefinite, you try to grasp it and it evaporates like Will-o-the-wisp. I for one need something more down to earth."

"Speaking of regrets, I do regret not being the kind of man to settle down."

"Well, how's about this then," she was taking a fecking big risk right now, "I'll be your safety wife."

"My what?" Sherlock almost laughed.

"Safety wife. Haven't y'ever heard of it? It's what people do when they're worried they'll never find 'The One'. They make a pact, that if they're both unmarried by a certain age, then they'll settle."

"Actually, I can see the logic in that. But how old?"

"I don't know, forty?"

"Forty?" Sherlock scoffed. "John's already forty-five. Do you mean to say that John and Mary merely settled?"

"Okay, older than forty-five then. Fifty?"

"I'm not walking down the aisle at fifty. That's just sad."

"Well, I don't know what to say that'll please you, so," Janine crossed her arms in mock exasperation.

"Forty-seven point five."

"Let's just call it forty-eight, shall we?"

They both dissolved into an overdue fit of laughter.

"Five minutes ago I didn't even know it was a thing, now I'm planning a safety marriage to decimal places."

When Janine had recovered, she said, "might have to do something about the whole earth going round the sun thing, though."

"Oh, that," Sherlock rolled his eyes, "mathematically speaking the earth doesn't revolve around the sun. They both revolve around a third separate point. In order for the earth to rotate around the sun astrophysics dictates the orbit would be concentric. The centre point is inside the sun but it's not in the middle of the sun. I wouldn't expect John to know that."

"I guess I've learned something today."

"You have to stop reading John's blog, it's just as filtered and sensationalist as the papers. Why do you read it, anyway?"

"I've only known you for a couple of weeks, gimme a chance. I guess I wanted to see what other people made of you, maybe find out what it's like for all the other people in your life to see you change. You know, when you went away."

"Everything had changed by the time I got back. Suddenly everyone's talking about card-clash and analogue TV has been switched off and the world had been taken over by someone called One Direction. When I was abroad everything was condensed down to exactly what lay around me and the mission at hand."

"That must've been hard."

"South America was hard. It was pure survival. Food became more important than the past or the present or the future. I'd never been that hungry, or lonely, or scared before. I didn't even know if I'd be coming home again." He paused long enough to notice that Janine had been listening to all of this with genuine interest and compassion. "Anyway. Enough about me. What's your biggest regret in life?"

"Herculanium." She slipped her hand back into his and they turned for the stairs.

"Herculanium?" Sherlock paused at the cusp.

"It's even better preserved than Pompeii. Always wanted to go there."

"Oh, Okay then," he smiled, "when do you want to go?"

* * *

That night, Sherlock went to the Paradiso and shot up a whole vial.

_Falling..._

**F** _a_ _L_ **L** i _**N**_ **g**

I_ t **H** **i** _n_ K _**i'** _M__ **f** A _l l_ i **n G**_ F _O_ **r**_ y o **U**

_Shit,_ what had he done?


	12. Lignes Floues

LIGNES FLOUES

* * *

_Wednesday 21st August 2013_

* * *

Sherlock woke in the Paradiso and peeled himself off of the sticky mattress. Yesterday came flooding back. The Dome, the confession, the guilt… He could see Billy through the arch of the makeshift kitchen, making instant coffee in a jam-jar.

_Smack-head chic, _he thought_. _Social media would be up in arms.

He went in search of somewhere to urinate and stumbled upon what used to be a water closet. The plumbing had long since been removed and it now housed a medley of unspeakable things. The rising aroma of ammonia identified it as the corner of choice among the frequent flyers. He approached the pile of sodden cardboard and debris with caution, feeling uneasy from the comedown, or more likely from the years of experience that told him what horrors might lie in wait. His heart skipped a beat when he identified something unmistakably human poking out from the underside of a Doritos box. The tiny, curled fingers were attached to a chubby arm. His heart began to beat wildly out of sync. He was not one to be taken by such irrational fear; after all it couldn't hurt him, but it was the connotations of what he was seeing that made him reel. He nudged aside part of the box with his foot to reveal the foetal form covered in excrement.

_Shit,_ he covered his mouth, rubbed his lips, pulled at them in relief.

Just a doll. It was just a doll. This place used to be a toy factory.

Sherlock almost laughed at himself. He watered a patch of litter by the door and went back to the main part of the building.

On the other side of the shooting gallery was a tattooed youth of indeterminate sex, staring bleary-eyed at their phone.

"Hey," Sherlock said, "you got Instagram on that thing?"

"Yeah," they yawned and eventually staggered over.

Sherlock put his arm around them on a mattress and did his best mock-selfie face, sticking up two fingers in a peace sign. They looked at it together, Sherlock's new friend clearly still gouching out. "Yeah," he said, rubbing the night before from his face, "I like that. What's your name?"

"Harley."

Sherlock had Harley send the picture to all their friends. Druggies were useful for networking; they always had extensive phone books, people they could scrounge off.

He checked his pockets, making sure he hadn't been robbed. He only had two vials left. He really needed to cool it, otherwise he'd run out before the case reached the desired momentum. He'd been seriously out of it last night. Not good for business.

"Hey, hey, hey," Darkside sauntered in, "how are we this morning, happy campers?"

"Taking selfies with this perv," Harley gathered their things.

Sherlock looked up at Darkside from the mattress and accepted a helping hand to stand. "I'm engineering my own downfall," he said, "it's complicated."

"That's basically my permanent Facebook status," Harley threw back, walking out. "See y'round, perv."

Sherlock jutted his chin in acknowledgement.

"You looking to score?" Darkside pulled several wraps of brown out of his inside pocket.

"Got anything prescription?" The reason why Sherlock paid premium prices was because he didn't want to go to the places full of addicts who shat on the floor and neglected their children. That way he could be in denial about how bad it really was. _Ah,_ bittersweet opiates. He was not at the point of taking the big risks yet.

Darkside squinted. "Um, diazepam, temazepam, phenobarbital, Viagra. I've got some Oxies in the car."

"How much?"

"Tenner a pop, but I gotta keep enough back for my regulars."

"Got anything stronger?"

"Hey man, I gotta be careful what I keep in my parent's garage - "

"You still live at home with your parents? What's your name? Your real name."

"Justin."

All of a sudden this Justin Darkside fellow looked his age. He was just a kid really. "Justin time," Sherlock said.

Justin scratched his nose. "Couple of wraps with intent, sure, that's seven years inside, two with good behaviour, but soon as you start looking organised, supply chains in the NHS, that kinda thing, you're looking at some serious time. They don't like that kinda thing. It's a threat to the establishment, y'know."

"So basically you only offer oddments of random shit to keep the po-po off the scent." Sherlock prepared to leave.

"Pretty much, yeah," Justin stuck his hands in his pocket, "I'll be back at four if you change your mind."

* * *

Too-hot water pelted down on the back of his neck. He tried not to think about Janine, travelling to Singapore with that psychopath. They would be setting off right about now. He wished she was here, curled up in the chair, John's chair, with a book and a cup of tea steaming beside her on the card table. He would come out of the bathroom, towelling his hair, and she would suggest dinner plans. It would be so easy; they would share some witticism and she'd understand his references, wouldn't scowl like others did. She would help him shed the dirtiness of his job. She was astute, she was graceful, she was real. In fact, she was the only real thing in his life. When he was a kid, his parents had a Simon and Garfunkel record that went something like _'she moved so easily, all I could think of was sunlight,'_ and he knew what Paul was singing about now. In fact, he knew what all the singers were singing about now. She was killing him. Slowly. Remotely.

The need for sex would strike randomly and infrequently. Just like the desire for food, it was something he'd become very good at suppressing, but it was still there. He thought of the scene in Janine's book where the princess, or slave girl, or whatever she was, would be prepared for the king, should he desire congress that night. Only in Sherlock's mind it was Janine waiting in the silk bedding, laden with jewels and anointed with jasmine oil.

His hand on his own cock still felt shameful somehow, forbidden. As if even today a man could be so indoctrinated in youth that the taboo would last his entire life. It wasn't his parents fault. It was never their fault.

He leaned on the tiles, faster now, pain etched on his face. The French call an orgasm _le petit mort_; sex and death are the same thing.

Sherlock finished and crumpled his face involuntarily into the wall. It was unexpectedly intense. When the anaesthetic effects of morphine wear off, sensation is restored and once dulled feelings are so much more acute, every nerve alert and raw, every footstep is like walking on glass, every little noise is thunder.

A congratulatory cigarette was in order, sitting in his boxers on the windowsill as per usual, but he noted with disappointment that it was the last one. He tossed the box onto the floor near the bin, and there it sat surrounded by a graveyard of playing cards. _Ah_, he was saved; there were the remnants of the cigarettes he'd smoked over the last couple of weeks—had it really been two weeks already?—scattered over the outside window sill and the bitumen sealed edge of the flat roof below. He collected as many cigarette butts as he could, some of them wet with dew and dangerously close to avian faeces. Some of them he'd stopped smoking half an inch from the filter. It seemed such a waste now that he was stringing out for another, so ironic. How things changed in such a short time. He went to the kitchen and rolled a fag from the various tufts of tobacco he'd collected, a pinch at a time from the soggy butts.

It was thin. Jailbird thin. _This is pathetic,_ he thought. But he smoked it anyway.

He briefly considered consigning the rest of the day to bed, but thought better of it; there was still an awful lot to be done. Throwing on a T-shirt—inside out of course, to stop the interminable itch caused by the label—he took up residence on the sofa. It was exactly the same position and mental state he would have been occupying had he, in fact, decided to stay in bed, however in here he had access to the computer which was plugged in pending a new battery. He really should upgrade soon. When he actually got around to shopping. His hands paused in front of a blank email.

He cracked his knuckles.

**To: barbara_ann_bergher**

**Subject: Fun and Games**

**Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 11:16:15 +0000**

**Dear Ms Bergher,**

**I have taken the liberty of hacking into your online grocery shopping account. I believe your son's personality changes, memory lapses and erratic behaviour are due to the sheer volume of Sunny Delight that he consumes.**

**Yours,**

**Sherlock Holmes**

**P.S. No charge.**

* * *

"What are you up to?" Molly muttered.

She still had Sherlock's medical records—he hadn't retrieved them after the stag—and they were spread out over her desk, most of her break having been taken up by some detective work of her own. They were extensive, as were the injuries they described, the file crammed with many hundreds of pages. Molly rarely saw records this thick, unless the patient had a chronic disease and required a lot of attention. Diabetes, kidney disease, cancer, that sort of thing. She wondered if Sherlock had meant her to see all this, or if it simply didn't cross his mind that his medical history might be of concern, focused only on the effects of the alcohol they would consume.

There were the usual childhood scrapes, of course; flipping his bike, putting his teeth through his bottom lip and breaking an arm, head injuries, precautionary medical attention following a chemical incident at school, a repeat script for Ritalin.

But then his life quickly began to descend into chaos; there were multiple psychiatric referrals—all of them inconclusive—overdoses, suspected heart attacks, stints in rehab, malnutrition, vaccinations for working abroad, a nasty case of dengue fever, seventeen broken bones, rhinoplasties for injuries sustained in professional boxing matches, lacerations incurred as a result of his recent adventures… the list went on and on.

One drug related entry was a note from a neurologist at St Thomas' about Sherlock's chronic cocaine abuse. If he binged one more time, it said, the seizures would surely kill him.

"Oh, you silly, silly boy," she breathed. The trouble was, she'd smelled smoke on his clothes when they met for coffee.

* * *

The workshop clanked and whirred with a thousand industrious hands and faces. If it was hot outside, it was even hotter in here. Sherlock didn't know how the employees could stand it, but they carried on regardless, assembling components and sweeping vacuum formed pieces of plastic off conveyor belts into cardboard boxes. He supposed they must have bills to pay.

He went to see the manager with the weird bit of tech.

"I am pleased to inform you that you have failed to disappoint, Mr Jones." He turned the device around and around, taking his loupe out of his back pocket to examine it for some kind of hallmark.

"Wh—what, I, erm—" Jones was a middle-aged man with the intelligence and charm of a turkey's wattle. It was a miracle he'd risen so far.

"I can see that I've confused you," Sherlock kept his eye on the piece, turning it this way and that, "I simply meant that you've provided me with a most intriguing case."

"Oh, wonderful," said Jones, "you'll take it, then?"

"I didn't say that."

"Oh," Jones did seem slightly disappointed, "any ideas?"

Sherlock peered even closer at the object, weighed it in his hand. It was satisfyingly heavy, larger than a cricket ball, yet smaller than a grapefruit. The surface was not smooth, however, but covered in various components, none of which corresponded with anything currently in existence, the curves and grooves resembling something organic, something almost alive. It was like an artist's impression of an alien probe. In a way, it was beautiful. "None whatsoever," he said.

"Hmmm," said Jones, also out of ideas, "we've had it tested; it's made of aluminium."

"Let me guess, you don't use any aluminium here."

Jones shook his head, "plastics, electronics, precision instruments, that sort of thing."

"Curiouser and curiouser." Sherlock threw the object casually from hand to hand, as one would a tennis ball or an apple. "Let's go for a walk."

Jones gave him a tour of the factory, and Sherlock noted that the object really was nothing like anything they made here. Shortly they came to a small glass-panelled room, cordoned off from the rest of the workshop, containing a table laid out with the viscera of some kind of electronics project. A young woman was just coming out of the room when Sherlock and Jones strolled up. "Oh, hey," she said, securing the door to the room, "is he here about the thing?"

"I was just showing Mr Holmes around," Jones clasped his hands behind his back.

"Marlene," the young woman struck out a hand.

Sherlock shook it. "What is it you, uh, do in there?"

"Helicopter avionics," Marlene looked back, "why, you're thinking it's industrial espionage?"

"It's possible," said Sherlock, but his attention was diverted by the attractive young man at work inside the glass room whose eyes had flicked up at their approach. Something about the way he looked at Sherlock. Sherlock scratched his nose, "Mr Jones, are you, by any chance married?"

"Yes, but I'm in the process of a divorce."

"And would you happen to have an eighteen-year-old son?"

"Yes, you don't think he—"

"He's studying art, isn't he?"

"He's trying to get into St Martin's. How did you—"

"And your wife's name is Barbara Ann, like the song."

"Yes."

"Barbara Ann Bergher. Her maiden name."

"Yes, but—"

"And you at some point mentioned me to her, which is why she contacted me about the strange goings on in her house."

"Strange—what?"

"Dear Mr Jones, I think what we have here is an A'level art exam piece." Sherlock handed the sculpture to Jones.

"But why would he leave it right in the middle of my office floor?"Jones spluttered, red in the face, "I've been going crazy, thinking it was the CIA or aliens have come down—"

"I don't think he meant to leave it. I think he might have been surprised."

Jones' eyebrows shot up. "What?"

"With his boyfriend," Sherlock tipped his head toward the avionics room, where the young man sat, studiously ignoring them and pretending to get on with some wiring.

The cogs turned and Jones finally caught up. "Mahmet?"

"I walked in on them," Marlene jumped in, "I was going to tell you, it just never seemed the right time."

Sherlock left them to figure it all out for themselves, Jones almost foaming at the mouth, and Marlene biting her lip. "I suggest," he threw back, "that you tell your son that you love him."

* * *

Molly dropped the wooden spoon aggressively into the Bolognese and wiped her hands on the tea towel. It was ruined. "I've just spent the day eviscerating a toddler. Can we skip the third degree?"

"It's not the cancelled date nights every time he needs something," Tom followed her around the kitchen, "it's what it's doing to you. I don't know where you are for days or weeks, not physically, you're just somewhere else in your head. You take extra shifts just in case he shows up at the lab—"

"He needs me." Molly leaned one hand on the counter and picked up the house phone to call the Mogul for a curry.

"He's an adult. He can take care of himself." Tom rubbed his face, dragging his cheeks down unattractively. "Jesus, it's like an addiction with you. You need to just walk away."

"He's my _friend_." She stopped dialling halfway through.

"For the fiftieth time." Tom began to clean up the sauce that had splashed when she threw the spoon down. It looked like blood. "He's not your friend. He's just using you. Wake up and smell the coffee. That's what they do; they keep you hanging on with compliments, make you feel involved, important, like you're the only one who can make things better. Jesus, you're in a bloody co-dependent relationship and it's not even with me." He finally gave up and chucked the soiled tea-towel into the laundry basket.

There were so many things she could have said in reply, but there was no point. "You know what?" she threw up her hands, "I can't keep doing this. This going round in circles." Just a modified version of something she'd already said so many times, like her speech to the prospective students. She wasn't angry; she'd just run out of energy to fight it. God, she even _pitied_ him. Always stuck on the same point. He was just another unregenerate arsehole.

* * *

On the way home Sherlock stopped at the off-licence on the corner. Mr Rajagopal was behind the counter and smiled when he came in.

"Twenty Embassy, please, Mr Rajagopal," Sherlock dug in his pockets.

Mr Rajagopal just looked at him blankly. "Um, don't you remember? You told me not to sell to you under any circumstances."

"When was this?" Sherlock frowned.

"Three years ago," Mr Rajagopal turned to point at a mugshot of Sherlock behind the counter, "you paid me five hundred pounds."

"So I did," the incident pinged back into Sherlock's memory, "but I died in the meantime so it doesn't stand."

"You also told me you'd try that," Rajagopal stood firm.

"Damn." He'd also paid off every shop within a two-mile radius. "I'll pay you another five hundred to lift the ban."

"And that. Are you sure you want to pay a thousand for a packet of cigarettes?"

"You have a point."

"Good afternoon, Mr Holmes," said Rajagopal as Sherlock left, "say hello to Doctor Watson for me."

Sherlock stopped by the door and punched the wooden frame lightly, grunting in frustration.

* * *

She could hear him bustling around, packing his things. Molly's voice was light, clear, as she stroked her fingers down the condensation on the window pane, watching the unseasonable shower outside. "What exactly does it take for someone to agree to marry you?"

"What? Is this him talking?" Tom threw more things into his holdall - books, a sweater - yanking at the zip in frustration. "This is him talking. Jesus fucking Christ, you sound exactly like him."

"How?" She drew her knees up to her chest, sitting on the window seat. "How did you do that? I still don't understand it. What did you do? Did you hypnotise me?"

"Well, we spent a lot of time together and I thought we might have a future," he spat bitterly, "you know the sex was pretty good - "

"There's no need to - "

"Last time we had this conversation you promised - you said you would at least try, that you wouldn't - "

"And you said you would give him the grace that he needs," she shouted, "you have to just trust me."

"Trust you - " Tom scoffed.

"I have to be allowed to go and do what I've got to do, and not have to justify myself. I have to know that - "

"But I need you to at least be here sometimes. I can't spend my every waking hour competing for attention with that man."

She finally looked at him. "Maybe you don't have to."

"So you what—you want to call it a day?"

"I don't 'want' to."

"But you're going to."

"I'm sorry." She squeezed her eyes shut.

"I see what this is now." He turned away, pressing his lips together to keep from saying something he'd regret.

"Tom."

"No, don't do that, don't try—I think," He paused at the kitchen door, "it's the right decision."

"I think it's for the best, too." Molly bit her lip.

"You know, it would've been better if this was a sex thing. I think I could've dealt with it if you were sleeping with him, but this..." Tom grabbed his keys and wallet off the radiator and slammed the door behind him.

* * *

"Excuse me, sir," Sherlock draped a serving cloth over his arm, "I'm afraid your card has been declined."

"Shit." The customer threw down his napkin and, making his apologies to his dining companion, an inattentive blond, left the table in search of help inside the cafe.

Sherlock gave the blond a conciliatory smile and cleared the table onto a tray. Including the customer's almost full packet of Benson and Hedges. Not the best, but not bad for two minutes work.

He dumped the tray on the next table when the blond was distracted by a passing waiter and disappeared into the _hoi poloi_.

* * *

"Greg," she croaked, sitting with her knees still tucked up to her chin by the bay window.

_"Hey, you alright?"_

"Tom and I broke up. I, um, didn't know who else to call."

_"You want me to send someone round to break his legs?"_

This made her laugh. "No," she wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

_"You should do what my daughter does. Get all your girlfriends round and wallow in a bucket of KFC in front of Netflix."_

"What, the friends that I just spent a week with shopping for wedding dresses and telling everything was so wonderful?"

_"You have a point. Maybe assassinate him on Facebook then."_

"No, I don't need to wallow. I just need an, um," she closed her eyes, "a pint."

_"A pint?"_

"Yeah, and er, footie."

_"Footie?"_

"Yeah."

There was a long silence where Greg seemed to consider this. _"Yeah, Okay, then,"_ he finally said, _"I'm on my way to a meeting with vice, but I'll give you a call around eight, alright?"_

"Alright," she went to hang up.

_"Molly."_

"Yeah," she put the phone back to her ear.

_"Was it because of 'him'?"_

"Yes."

_"Alright, speak to you later then."_

* * *

_Who needs their laundry to smell of honeysuckle and black diamonds anyway?_

Sherlock placed the box of detergent back on the Tesco shelf. Him. In a supermarket. A _Supermarket_.

_What are you doing?_

"Taking a ladies advice," he said.

An old woman, who was browsing the tumble-dryer sheets, looked at him strangely.

"No-one was talking to you," he scowled, "move along."

He already had a packet of Swiss muesli and a pint of milk in the basket. He was quite proud of himself. It was no good trying to run before he could walk; the relationship stuff in the magazines could wait until he'd mastered the basics. If he could keep his blood sugar up, then there wouldn't be any more incidents like the Tower. He couldn't afford to get caught out. Too much was at stake.

His phone vibrated in his pocket.

It was Greg.

He rejected it.

"Checking up on me?"

The old girl was looking at him again, so he said, "boo!"

She shifted her weight, dropped her Surf into her trolley and walked off, looking at him down her nose.

Sherlock moved on to the eggs. Maybe it was the thought of eating or maybe it was that he was still shaken from the broken doll this morning, but he was starting to feel dizzy.

He dropped the basket at his feet. He swayed a little and reached out, but all he felt was the cardboard edges of dozens of boxes of eggs, nothing substantial. He righted himself, loosened his collar and tugged down his sleeves in an unconscious attempt at some sort of propriety. It was so hot in here.

_Control._

_Control your breathing._

_Control your heart rate._

But even he could not control an episode of vasovagal syncope.

Grey snow began to creep in around the edges of his vision. This was not the time or the place. He had to do something about this, this _disorder_. He couldn't have Janine knowing he had a weakness like this. He couldn't afford to be weak. He had climbed mountains, for God's sake, he had achieved impossible feats of endurance, he couldn't be about to -

If he could just ascend into a meditative -

"Excuse me sir," said the store manager, "I've had reports of you harassing the other customers - "

"Me harassing _them_ \- "

"And I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave." The manager reached down for Sherlock's basket.

For some reason this made Sherlock's fight-or-flight instinct go into overdrive. It was all he could do to prevent himself from pulverising the man's kidneys, and then -

And then the strangest calm. As the floor rose to meet his face - _why did it keep on doing that all the time_ \- he could only think of one thing; that very soon Mrs Hudson would be settling down in front of her TV to watch Countryfile with a bag of wine-gums.

"Great," said the manager, looking down at Sherlock's prostrate form, then bellowed, "Linda! We've got another one!"


	13. Papillon

**Mature content. Thanks for listening.**

* * *

PAPILLON

* * *

_And if you come back, I'll take you to the garden  
We'll dance to an orchestra on the lawn  
And we roll in the foggy dew  
And dance with the ghosts upon the dawn  
And on the dawn, and on the dawn._

_Then you'll kiss me and tell me it's not broken_  
_Kiss me and kiss me, 'til I'm dead_  
_See, I give you the stars from the bruised evening sky_  
_And a crown of jewels for your head, now._

_~Mundy~_

* * *

Thursday 22nd August 2013

* * *

_"Ladies and Gentlemen we will be touching down in Changi in a little over an hour. This will be fifteen minutes past our scheduled arrival, so please accept my sincerest apologies on behalf of myself, the crew and the intertropical jet-stream convergence zone."_

Janine hadn't been in Singapore for a while and she was actually looking forward to it this time; the blast of humid air as you left the air-conditioned hotel, the constant aroma of compost and orchids, the twelve thousand miles between her and her problems. Perhaps this trip would give her the space and time she needed to think things through.

She rolled over on the recliner, pulling the _Emirates_ blanket around her, grateful that first class espoused privacy as much as she did, cocooned in her own little section. She could always watch a movie to take her mind off things, or fire off another email to Kayleigh, see how she was coping on her first weekend alone in the office. _Nah,_ Kay would be fine. She was well trained after all. Charles was on the other side of the cabin, making personal calls, and he had pretty much left her to her own devices during the journey, knowing that if she arrived fresh and un-harried she would be all the better to do his bidding. In the meantime she savoured the tranquillity of the flight, lest she become jaded and accustomed to this level of luxury. She almost felt bad for Michael, travelling on his own in economy.

Eventually she folded the blanket and decided to pay Michael a visit, taking a glass of champagne and the untouched supper tray with her. She stopped by Charles' seat on the way, touching his shoulder lightly. "I'm just going for a stroll. DVT."

He looked up briefly, his phone still to his ear and nodded in acknowledgement, then went right back to arguing with Cornelius. She had a feeling Cornelius wasn't going to last much longer. They'd been through at least five front-page editors while she'd been with the company.

Michael had been dozing with his headphones on when she sneaked up and slipped into the empty seat beside him. He roused himself at the sound of the supper hitting the pull-down tray in front of him. "Hey," he said.

"Hey."

"How's your flight?" He took the headphones off and put them away, bundling them up neatly in an overnight bag at his feet.

"Okay, I s'pose. I brought you some treats." She pushed the glass of champagne more firmly into its hole in the tray and it almost sloshed out.

"Thanks." Michael seemed taken aback.

"They served dinner when we took off, breakfast three hours later and they've done nothing but ply us with food since then. I think they're trying to reset our body clocks. Part of a bid for world domination."

Michael laughed. "What'll they do when they find a first-class glass and plate back here?"

"Charles could probably buy the whole airline. I doubt they'd sniff at an errant place setting."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Michael swirled the champagne and took a swig, setting it down to uncover the supper and pick at the asparagus.

"I ordered the gluten free, thinking of you." Janine said.

"You didn't… that was very nice of you."

"Well, I knew you'd need sustenance, with your working out and all that."

"Mmm, this is amazing," he almost choked in his enthusiasm, stabbing the chicken with a plastic fork, "much better than the Gordon Ramsey shit they've been shoving down our throats."

At that moment one of the megalomaniac flight attendants went by and gave them a funny look.

Janine turned her attention to her real reason for her visit. "Mickey, you remember the other day when you were telling me about Jordan?"

He frowned, throwing brie and grapes into his mouth. "What about it?"

"Well," Janine was aware she might be opening Pandora's box, "did anyone else know what happened? Did you call the police?"

"Of course not. This is Charlie we're talking about here. He could've strangled him with his bare hands if he'd wanted and no-one would've dared bat an eyelid."

"Hmm." Janine sunk further into the seat. What was he telling her? That Charles hypothetically strangled Jordan to death?

"What's this all about?" said Michael, slightly worried.

"Nothing, I'm just… Did his family know what happened? I'm concerned there might be backlash, that's all."

Michael nodded in understanding. "You're thinking they might pull something out of the hat due to this court case with the, you know, the thing."

"Exactly." Not exactly. "They might want to capitalise on the parliamentary inquiry."

"Yeah, that's the uh, word I was looking for. Parliamentary inquiry."

She smiled at him. "So y' don't think it's going to be an issue?"

"Look, Jordan was a weird dude, alright. He didn't have a family. He didn't have any friends." Michael leaned closer to her, lowered his voice. "He stole from Charlie boy and he wasn't about to let that go unpunished."

"What, embezzlement?" said Janine, in an equally hushed voice.

"There were inconsistencies in his personal accounts. Bloody idiot if you ask me. If you're gonna rob your employer, don't do it under their bloody nose." He looked so serious for a second, Janine wasn't sure if he was directing this statement at her. But then his face cracked into a smile. "Shoulda known he'd string himself up. Dude was into some weird shit. Guess he just couldn't live with the shame. Fucking pussy."

"Yeah," Janine pretended to laugh as Michael replaced his headphones in his ears.

* * *

"Right, so what you do is you take a packet of crisps - cheese and onion, salt and vinegar, whatever you fancy - and you scrunch 'em up tight, like this," Greg crushed the crisp packet in one fist, "so they're all broken up small."

Molly laughed. "How come I never knew about this?"

"And then you just plop the egg in and shake it around a bit." He dropped in a pickled egg from the bar and shook the packet violently. "And hopefully, if you've done it right, the crumbs stick to the egg and make a kind of coating. A bit like an instant scotch egg."

Molly delved into the packet and brought out a shining example of British cuisine. She bit into it suspiciously. "Oh, oh, my God - " she covered her mouth, "I think I'm gonna puke." But somehow she was still laughing. She spat the chewed egg and crisps back into the packet and took a gulp of her pint. They laughed the kind of laugh you only did when you'd had a couple of drinks and you desperately needed to laugh because everything was just so fucked up.

Greg sobered when he realised he'd had his hand on her back the whole time. He tried to remove it without her noticing. Their eyes met. He sighed and said, "you know you're getting old when you say 'oh, dear' when you've finished laughing."

"You're not that old."

"I'm fifty-five this year. Thirty years on the force."

"Oh," said Molly, turning back to the bar.

"So, uh," Greg changed the subject, "what are you gonna do now?"

"I don't know, I'll," she bit her lip, looked into the dregs of her drink, "there's a job going with MSF. Identifying victims of genocide in Cambodia."

"Right."

"It's just, I'm uniquely qualified and I, I feel like I need to do something for humanity, stop looking inwards all the time."

"Right."

She looked up. "What do you think?"

"I think," Greg dragged it out, trying to get the bartender's attention, "you should have another pint."

"Seriously, though."

"Is it a paid position?"

She shook her head. "I'd have to sell the flat."

Greg paid for two more pints.

"Look, just don't," he pocketed the change, "don't make any big decisions while you're still upset."

"Okay, Okay - "

"Just don't – don't move to another country. Not yet."

* * *

The concierge greeted them upon arrival at Raffles with a firm handshake and a waiter holding a tray of Singapore slings.

"Mr Magnussen," the concierge smiled, "How wonderful to be receiving you again, so soon."

Janine ignored them, went straight to the cocktails and gulped hers down in one. The waiter blinked. Michael looked at her strangely, adjusting his jacket as he stood off to Charles's side.

She heard the concierge continue his spiel as she reached for another glass.

"And Lee will be your personal butler for the duration of your stay, as requested."

Lee stepped forward from behind the concierge's desk and gave a little nod, his hands behind his back. Janine remembered him. She gave him a sly little wink when she was sure Charles wasn't watching. She felt… She felt mischievous somehow. Like she didn't care any more. Like she was coming undone. It wasn't just the drink. It was…

She didn't know.

It was all so perfect on the surface, but all so seedy underneath.

They were shown to their rooms, Charles's usual suite and two interconnecting rooms down the hall for his staff. Janine breathed a sigh of relief when Charles went into his room to freshen up before dinner. Unlocking his own door, Michael gave her a little look that said _alright?_ And she gave him a little look that said _fine _before going in.

Janine put her second Singapore sling on the sideboard and flopped down on the queen-sized bed. She loved this hotel, with its colonnades and its ceiling fans, its mosquito nets and its old-world charm. In the corner of her room was a small antique table with an actual old-school cathode TV.

She rolled onto her back and closed her eyes, listening to the far away buzz of the city and the call of the birds. The slow _whoop-whoop_ of the fans.

* * *

"There will now be a short interlude while members of the troupe perform an interpretive dance based on themes of quantum mechanics and paternal abandonment." The MC exited stage-left while members of the Barbican Revival Theatre pranced on in black tights and white masks.

Molly buried her face in Greg's shoulder to keep herself from laughing out loud. She shook with the paroxysms while Greg covered his face with his hands. "This has got to be the worst play I have ever seen in my life," he whispered, "and I've seen my kids' rendition of _Springtime for Hitler_."

Molly recovered herself somewhat. "This is the last time I get last minute tickets online, I promise," she hissed behind one hand.

"Wanna get out of here?"

"Yeah, come on."

They rose from their seats and, trying not to dissolve back into giggles, negotiated their way through the sea of disgruntled patrons.

Outside in the fresh air, Molly linked arms with Greg, so that she wouldn't break her ankle on the theatre steps. She sighed, looking up at the moon and the stars in the clear sky. "This is the most fun I've had in a long time."

"We should do this again sometime," said Greg as they walked companionably along the riverside.

"Well, I'm not planning on breaking up with anyone else anytime soon, so don't get too excited." She reached down to adjust the strap on her shoe.

"I mean it Molly, we only ever seem to talk about work or Sh... My point is, I can be there for, for advice or," he stopped and un-linked his arm, swallowing stiffly, "or whatever."

Molly looked up at him from her shoe-fixing. She let her foot return to the ground, very slowly, as she straightened up. They looked at each other for the longest time. Then she burst out laughing again. Greg joined her as she rested her arms on the balustrade, but he did not laugh quite as much. Molly placed her forehead on the cool wall, hair tumbling onto her forearms and on to the stone. She was quiet for quite some time and he watched her in the moonlight. He could do with a fag right now. He put his hands in his pocket for something to do, kicked a stone around. Finally she moved, or rather made a little blip of laughter. "I haven't even had that much to drink," she said.

Greg leaned his arms on the wall in a mirror of her pose.

"If Tom knew I was here with you..." Molly turned her head to look into his eyes.

"Fuck 'im," he said, "if you can't have male friends..."

"Yeah," she said, "fuck 'im."

* * *

There was a sharp _rat-a-tat-tat_ on the door.

Janine roused herself, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand where she'd been dribbling. _Shit,_ she must have fallen asleep. What time was it? It was still daylight, so she couldn't have been out of it for long.

She pulled her skirt down more modestly and ran her fingers through her hair before answering the door.

It was Michael. "You didn't forget, did you?"

"No, I, uh… Just let me get my note book." As she searched her bag, she felt a lurch of nausea rising, the bitter taste of her new disdain for Michael and the unfair things he'd said about Jordan.

* * *

"So, Miss..." Janine entertained a young Filipino student in the Writer's Bar, nursing a frosted glass of mint tea. Michael, as always, hovered in the background, and it was beginning to dawn on Janine that Charles had brought him along less for his own protection and more to mind _her_.

"Mendoza," said the girl.

"Miss Mendoza." Janine took a sip of her icy tea. "I'm sure you are aware that this, er… assignment comes with certain caveats."

The girl sitting across from her couldn't have been older than twenty. She'd dressed exactly as they'd asked her to, business-like and with certain concessions to the tropical weather, as discrete as possible. Her long dark curls framed a small, childlike face, bare except for the subtlest slick of eyeliner. She was perfect. And that was why Janine hated herself.

"Okay," said the girl, folding her hands in her lap.

Janine read from her notes. "You will be required to hand over your passport before commencement of the assignment. You will be required to sign a disclaimer, waiving your rights to any recompense over and above the fee already discussed in the event of any injury to your person or property. You will be paid in US dollars upon successful completion of your assignment, and your passport will be returned to you." Janine glanced over her shoulder at Michael, whose face was set like stone, part of the scenery. The sun was setting; soon it would be time for the dinner. "Any questions?"

"Um," said Miss Mendoza, "can you tell me what Mr Magnussen likes?"

Janine cleared her throat. "I'm not going to lie to you. He likes it rough."

"Don't we all?" Mendoza shrugged.

"I don't think you understand," Janine blinked, "the fee is high for a reason."

"So, he's one of those. This isn't my first time."

"Fine," Janine pushed the paperwork over to her, "sign here, and here, and here. I'll just need your passport. Michael will escort you to Mr Magnussen's suite, where you will remain until he returns from dinner. It was nice meeting you, Miss Mendoza."

* * *

"Charles!" Their client, Mr Bashir Asoud, swept across the lobby and grasped Charles's hand in both of his, pumping it enthusiastically.

"Bashir," Charles nodded, taking back his hand.

Janine automatically reached for an antibacterial wipe from her bag. Charles took it and cleaned his hands.

Bashir turned to Janine. "And your lovely assistant, how wonderful to see you again."

"Mr Asoud." Janine hated all this fakery and ass-kissing.

"Please, call me Bashir."

"Well I suppose we should be on first name terms by now," she faux smiled.

"I won't tell my wife if you don't," Bashir winked. "Let's see how your Arabic is coming along._ As-salaam 'alaykum_."

"_Wa 'alaykum salaam_," Janine replied.

"Very good, very good!" he said, then tried his hand at Farsi, "_haletun chetore?_"

"You remembered," she feigned delight, then said, almost flirtatiously, "_man khubam mamnun, shoma chetorid?_"

Just then the maître d' interrupted. "Mr Magnussen, your table is ready."

They were lead to a table in Raffles Grill, right by a window, surrounded by pillars and chandeliers and antiques. Bashir pulled out Janine's chair for her. Michael stood by one of the pillars, haunting them. He was quite used to standing still for long periods of time, not really participating in events, just waiting for the moment when he was needed. She stashed her bag under the table and soaked up the elegant colonial atmosphere. She could see out into the twilight where small lamps were beginning to sparkle in the tropical gardens. Liveried footmen and other guests sauntered to and fro under the vaulted veranda. She thought of the poor Filipino girl waiting in Charles's room. She would never be able to afford to stay in a place like this, but one night with Charles would pay for her entire university education. Shame she had no idea what lay in store for her tonight. Janine imagined her returning to her student digs, bruised and battered and bitter.

She was startled back to the present by the wine waiter.

Charles ordered a bottle of the 1949 Chateau Rothschild to accompany their Chateaubriand.

"An excellent choice, sir."

The waiter turned to leave but Janine called him back again. "Another bottle of the Voss water too, please."

Charles frowned ever so slightly. "You're feeling unwell?"

"Fine, honestly," she laid a hand on his sleeve, turning her attention to the conversation.

"So, as I was saying," said Bashir, "that little article in The Globalist cost us probably half a mill in revenue, so you can see where the current shift in responsibilities is taking us - "

"A tiny blip on the landscape," said Charles reaching for his water glass, "what I'm proposing is a complete overhaul of the online services, local and worldwide as part of our new programme of modernisation. The front page would appeal - "

"What I'm worried about is our long term readers, the older generation - "

"A dying generation, Bashir - "

At that point Janine pretty much tuned them out. She knew it was rude; her job was to get to know the clients, feed Charles every bit of information he needed, be the perfect hostess and laugh at their jokes, lull them into a false sense of security. But tonight -

"Janine," said Charles curtly, as the appetisers arrived. "The portfolio."

"I, uh - Sorry," she smiled, "of course." And she flipped the envelope out of her bag and on to the table.

Charles and Bashir continued to talk business while she poured herself another glass of water and stared at it. It was so sticky, so humid, she really didn't feel like a hot meal right now. She couldn't think, she couldn't -

"Try this." Charles was holding a finger in front of her face.

"Sorry?" Out of the corner of her eye she could see Bashir's expression change. Sort of amused, sort of unsure.

"Try it." Charles jabbed his finger closer to her mouth. It was loaded with _foie gras_ flecked with truffle. His face was unreadable.

"I'd really rather not." She gently pushed his hand away.

Charles sucked his cheeks in momentarily and then he snapped. He grabbed her face with his free hand and tried to squeeze her jaw open.

Janine was too shocked to react. Bashir looked on, horrified, but did not move to defend her. Other diners and the staff turned their heads to see what had made the clash of cutlery ring out across the dining room. She saw Michael move to step in but then he thought better of it. This all happened in a split second.

"Good girl," said Charles quietly, sadistically, so that only she could hear, "open up."

His soiled finger hovered barely a millimetre from her lips. He almost managed to work her jaw open before she wrenched her face away and pushed off from the edge of the table. She lost her balance and ended up sprawled on the floor, her chair tipped on its side. Hushed gasps rose from the table nearest to them. Janine let her hair cover her face and took a couple of breaths before she attempted to get up. Her cheeks were flushed with anger. Her heart was beating out of her chest. Before she knew what was happening, Michael's strong hands were on her upper arms, pulling her to her feet and replacing the chair, and Charles was apologising to the waiter. "She's had rather too much to drink. Michael, take her back to her room, would you, see that she's looked after. We can manage from here."

Michael took her by the elbow, one arm around her shoulders, and guided her out of the restaurant.

Magnussen sucked his finger clean and resumed his conversation with Bashir as if nothing had happened.

Once they were out of sight down the long white corridor, Janine broke free from Michael's grasp and punched one of the doors, grunting in frustration. "You saw that," she gasped, her chest still heaving, "that was rape - that was attempted oral rape."

A happy couple came out of one of the doors, the woman with a shawl draped over her shoulders and the man in a tux. Janine let them pass and then leaned her back on the wall. She was beginning to calm down a bit. She massaged her cheeks where Charles had grabbed her. Michael just watched her silently.

"Did he bring me here just to humiliate me?"

"I don't know," Michael finally said and joined her in her pose, folding his arms. "Okay now?"

"No, I'm not Okay, he's a fucking lunatic Nazi prick."

"Look, let me take you back to the room and I'll draw you a bath, or something."

She looked at him. "Actually," she said, "I've got a much better idea."

* * *

"Just a little bit more to the left," she threw her head back and let her hair flow sensually around her shoulders as she rode him, "a little bit more. There you go. Yeah... yeah... yeah... don't stop."

"How's that?" he asked, bucking to the same rhythm, grinding into her with his hands on her hips. The whites of their eyes glistened in the dark as they rocked in unison.

"Fantastic."

Suddenly he lifted her by her rump and dumped her on the bed so that he could have a go on top, positioning himself for optimal coital alignment.

"You Okay?" he asked, ploughing into her and making the headboard bang against the wall.

"Great," she said, grasping the bars above her head, "I have to say, it's totally different with someone so... experienced."

"Don't sell yourself short," he grunted.

"And, you know, you have so much more stamina."

"I think it's an age thing."

"Younger men are so... impetuous. Don't you think?"

He hunched his back, speeding up slightly. "Do you think we could - "

"Oh, sorry, I do tend to talk too much when I'm - "

"It's Okay," he winced, "just 'til I've - "

She gasped, holding the bars tighter as he thrusted ever deeper and harder. "I think I'm gonna - "

"Me too - "

"Oh, God," she involuntarily clamped her legs around his torso, reached out and pummeled the wall, "fucking shit tit-wank cock-sucking dirt-bag - "

"What the - " he finally released his hold on her, panting and red, but she carried on writhing, arching off the bed in ecstasy.

"Fuck. Shit. Fuck. _Fuck_. FUCK." And then she dropped back onto the pillows.

They lay next to each other for a while, staring at the Artex ceiling. Finally he turned to her. "Molly."

"Yes," she said.

"I've - I've seen and heard most of what the world has to offer. I mean, I'm pretty hard to shock. But I was not - I was not expecting that."

"Greg," she said not looking at him.

"What?"

"Don't tell Sherlock."

"I won't."

Before she could say anything there was a creak and the bedroom door swung open. A young woman and a young man tumbled into the room, clearly too absorbed with each other to notice anyone else in the room. Molly sat bolt upright and pulled the sheets up around her just as the young woman flicked on the light.

"Dad," the young woman looked at Greg and then at Molly, "I thought we agreed _I_ would have the flat on weekdays."

The young man covered his eyes, still holding onto the door as if for safety. "For God's sake, Gregory, put some pants on."

* * *

"He'll never know." Janine waved Charles's credit card tantalisingly in front of Michael's face as they slipped down the front steps of the hotel to the waiting chauffeur. He held the door for her and went around to the other side.

"Of course he'll know," Michael fastened his seat-belt, "he just won't care."

"Where to, Miss?" The driver asked.

"Oh, I don't know," Janine waved her hand, "anywhere. Little India."

"Whatever you say, Miss."

"Thank you, Mr Koh."

Michael and Janine smirked at each other conspiratorially as they left the hotel grounds and turned onto the highway for Downtown. It was odd sitting in the back of a car alone with him; if she wanted to go anywhere without Charles, Michael was usually driving. She inched her hand away from his, just in case he got the wrong idea about their escapade.

"Mr Magnussen not with you tonight?" Mr Koh seemed to read her thoughts.

"Uh, no, he's in a meeting. We just thought we'd get some fresh air. Mr Koh, do you know Bugis Street?"

"Is that where you want to go, is it?"

"Yeah, sorry, I couldn't remember the name of it before."

"Alright." Mr Koh put on his blinkers and turned off the highway onto a tree lined avenue.

"Have you ever been shopping in Sing?" she turned to Michael.

"I can't say that I have. Business, not pleasure."

"You'll love it."

Michael looked at her and shook his head. "You're crazy."

"I know."

* * *

"So," Genevieve spooned sugar into a mug of instant coffee, "What was it you do again? You're not a cop, are you?"

"God, no," Molly accepted the coffee gratefully, "I work at Saint Bartholomew's hospital."

She and Greg were now thankfully dressed and sitting on the sofa of the open-plan apartment like naughty teenagers caught _in flagrante_. Genevieve's fiancee, Adewale, propped up the door-frame, watching them disapprovingly.

"She's just been made consultant." Greg turned his own mug around to get to the handle as Genevieve had put it down on the coffee table facing away from him. He suspected she'd done it on purpose. "You haven't got a fag on you, have you Love?"

"Sure," Genevieve tossed him a rectangular tin as she sat down on the other sofa. She crossed her long legs and blew across the top of her own coffee.

Greg lit one of the hand-rolled cigarettes for himself and then one for his daughter. She reached over the coffee table to take it, sat there watching the other two, occasionally flicking ash into a small terracotta dish. "Please tell me," she blew smoke vertically into the air, "that you're both being responsible."

"Gen, Love, I'm a professional and she's a physician. We're both very respons - "

"Dup," Genevieve cut him off, "did you, or did you not, use protection?"

"I'm really sorry about this," Greg whispered to Molly, "we used to play good-cop-bad-cop when she was little."

"And you," Genevieve pointed at Molly with her cigarette, "do you think this is any way to introduce yourself to his family?"

"Um," said Molly, "I'm... _sorry_?"

"That's more like it." Genevieve took another drag, flicked more ash. "I hope he bought you dinner first."

"Actually," Molly sneaked a sideways glance at Greg, "he didn't."

Adewale exhaled and shook his head, "shame on you, shame on you."

"Look, guys, in my defence," Greg held up his hands, "it was a spur of the moment thing, and it was her idea."

"Don't you try to shift blame onto her, young man," Genevieve said, "I thought I brought you up to be better than that."

Greg leaned in to whisper to Molly again. "We had her quite young."

"Now," Genevieve finally stubbed out her cigarette, "I don't want to see her again until you've taken her out to dinner and done this properly. Am I making myself clear?"

"Look, Love - " Greg started.

"I said, am I making myself clear?" Genevieve growled.

"Perfectly clear." Greg looked down.

"Now that that's out of the way, Ade and I want to go to bed. It's getting pretty late."

"Yeah, of course," Greg rose and offered Molly his hand, "I'll uh, see you Sunday."

"Yeah, 'course." Genevieve stood to see them out. "You can come too if you want," she said, looking at Molly.

Molly was taken aback. "Uh," she looked to Greg for approval, "we'll see."

Adewale held the door for them.

"Thank you," Molly said on the way through. Greg was already on the stairs. "I really am so sorry about everything."

"Don't worry about it," Adewale smiled, "it's not the first time this has happened."

"Oh, really."

"Listen," Adewale tipped his head toward Greg on the stairs, "don't worry about Gen, she likes you, yeah."

"Yeah." Molly smiled warmly. "Goodnight," she called as she skipped down the stairs.

"Goodnight." Adewale called after them.

* * *

Janine wandered down row upon row of exquisite silks and bolts of linen, trailing her fingers over the more inviting textures. Gold. Velvet. The soft sheen of turquoise satin. Michael followed at a short distance, the usual security protocol one would employ for a minor dignitary, or a princess perhaps. He smiled softly to himself, watching her wallow in all the treasures of the markets.

He caught up with her just as she was pulling out a length of fabric from one of the stalls. A deep forest green with silver embroidery. She tucked the end in the front of her jeans and wrapped it around herself like a sari, pulling it up over her hair and framing her face with the elaborate edge.

"What do you think?"

"Yeah," he said, totally uninspired, "it's Okay, I s'pose."

"What's the matter?" She pushed the silk down off her head.

"Nothing. Don't let me ruin your moment."

"How much?" Janine turned to the stall-holder, a woman in her sixties with a fresh bindi on her forehead.

"Two hundred," said the woman, "Singapore dollar."

"Nah," Janine began to take the sari off, "I don't like it that much."

"Hundred eighty," said the woman.

"How about," Janine stopped unwrapping herself to draw the credit card out of her bra, "I give you five hundred for this one," she took the vermilion silk from the shelf, "and this one," she took the gold one from the shelf, "and this one."

Michael seemed impressed. The woman procrastinated, chewing her own lips a little. Finally she said, "deal. Pretty girl, clever too."

Janine paid her and Michael ended up carrying the ribbon-tied boxes. "I'm sure she only did that because of the way you look," he said as they walked down the market, past elaborately painted buildings with shuttered windows, "you probably reminded her of her daughter, or something."

Janine shook her head. "That is probably the most racist thing I've ever heard."

"Nah, you probably don't have to deal with that kind of thing anyway, everyone likes pretty girls, no matter what flavour they come in."

She put out an arm to stop him. "Are you serious? Do you have any idea what it's like growing up the only brown family in Dublin?"

"Jesus, sorry, I was only joking."

They carried on walking in silence.

"Probably the only person in the whole of Ireland that can actually get a tan," Michael said after a while, twisting his mouth to hide a smirk.

Janine pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh, but then she cracked up. "That was funny. Really funny. You know you should give up your day job."

"Nice try."

"Hey," she nudged him in the ribs, eyes wide, "char kway teow!"

They'd stopped in front of a little street food stall with a good line in front of it.

"What the hell is char kway teow?"

"You've never had char kway teow?"

"No, I've never had char kway teow."

"You can't come to Singapore and not have char kway teow."

"Well, I guess we're having char kway teow."

"Yay, we're having char kway teow."

"What is char kway teow again?"

"You have to say it with a Cantonese accent." They got in line. "Char-Kway-teow. It's noodles with pork fat and leeks, I think. It has a very distinctive flavour from the hot wok."

"I don't think I - " he patted his stomach.

"Oh, God, of course. Sorry, I didn't think."

"One noodle and I'd be in hospital for a week."

"Do you think Mr Koh would like some?"

"I don't think he'd be able to eat it while driving."

"You're probably right." Janine kicked her own heels as they waited in line. "So, what do you eat then?"

"Mostly cans of tuna. Protein shakes, that kind of thing."

"God, I've got a mouth on me," she said, thinking of the uneaten Chateaubriand back at the hotel, "I could eat a feckin' horse."

* * *

Michael handed one of the ice-creams to Mr Koh and one to Janine - he had a watermelon ice-pop for himself - and all three of them leaned on the side of the BMW licking them in the floodlit car-park.

"Where exactly are we?" said Michael.

"Butterfly park," said Janine catching a drip before it landed on her hand, "they've got a special thing where they open at night sometimes."

"I used to bring my kids here when they were small," said Mr Koh, thoughtfully.

"Oh, that's nice," said Janine, "what are their ages?"

"Leung is twenty-four. He's just finished medical school - "

"Oh, my God," said Janine, "you must be so proud."

"We are," said Mr Koh, "and Gemma is twenty-two and she owns her own business, selling mobile phones and she owns her own house already."

Janine put a hand on his shoulder, "Mr Koh, that is amazing. And what about your wife, what does she do?"

"My wife is dead," Mr Koh said matter-of-factly, licking his ice-cream cone.

"I'm so sorry." Janine's smile faded. Mr Koh just shrugged. She could tell he didn't want to talk about it. "So, what is it you like about the cheauffeur business?"

"Driving interesting people like you."

"Oh, Mr Koh, you're too kind."

Michael just laughed and shook his head. "What are you like?"

"What?" she held up her hands.

"Come on," he said, "do you want to go in or not?"

Michael dumped his ice-pop into the trash by the gate and Mr Koh got back into the car.

* * *

Atlas moths and Agamemnon butterflies. Little blue ones and big pink ones and huge fluttery ones she didn't have a hope in hell of pronouncing. A green Moon-moth that flew right over their heads. Tiny orange and black ones that came and sat on her hand.

Michael's interest seemed to be flagging so Janine found a bench and patted the spot next to her so that he would sit down. "Y'alright?" she said.

"Yeah, just a bit jet-lagged and I haven't had a run for three days so I'm getting a bit tetchy."

"It's really beautiful here." She leaned back on the bench and covered her forehead with her arm.

"Sure is."

"Why does everything have to be so fecking hard?"

"What do you mean?" Michael sat up straighter.

"Why can't I find a job where I don't have to deal with all this stupid politics?" Not for the first time, she envied Sherlock; he didn't even pay his taxes. He didn't have to work with anyone he didn't want to. She wished he was here with her, then they could walk arm in arm through the butterfly gardens, and she wouldn't have to hang out with her psycho boss and this prick next to her on the bench. She closed her eyes. "Everything's so fecking hard," she said again.

"You know," Michael said, uncomfortably, "they say it's the struggle that fills the butterfly's wings with blood. Or something."

"Really?" she said, opening her eyes and bringing her arm down, "you're going to do this? Now?"

He licked his lips and moved a little closer. Then she realised he meant to try and kiss her.

"Seriously." She pushed him off and scooted further along the bench.

"What?"

"What the hell are you doing?"

"It just seemed like the right - "

"It's never going to be right. Can't you see that?" She rubbed her forehead, suddenly fatigued. "Jaysus."

"If it's the racism thing, I can change - "

She practically guffawed in disbelief. She saw that he wasn't going to back down. "I'm already seeing someone, Mickey."

"Oh," he said. "Is it serious?"

She grabbed her bag off the bench. "Just take me back to the hotel."

* * *

Alone in her room, Janine crossed over to the connecting door and locked it. You could never be too careful.

A light breeze billowed the curtains and she could hear crickets singing to the night. She kicked off her shoes and threw her clothes off, unhooking her bra and slipping between the crisp white sheets. They were cool and smooth and they flowed over her bare breasts. She turned over and revelled in feeling free, in feeling something 'other' touching her.

Such a crazy evening. First Charles's 'Hannibal' moment and the embarrassment of falling on her face in front of Bashir - he was not a bad man, just a coward - and then a very interesting trip with Michael, which may or may not make things very awkward in the morning. How she wished Sherlock was there with her.

Her hand moved over her stomach and into the elastic of her french knickers. She needed cock. Why on earth did she not bring a toy from her collection? Maybe it was the thought of Sherlock or the thought of her collection, but it sent a shudder of arousal through her body. She slipped her hand between her thighs to find that they were already slick with anticipation. She found the centre of her playground and began to arch and writhe at her own ministrations. Little circles and then bigger circles and then smaller circles again. The knicker elastic provided a nice tension against her hand, almost like bondage. She began to dream of what she might make Sherlock do to her when they were reunited. She would make him so crazy with desire that he would lose control and fuck her right there on the filthy kitchen counter. She imagined the curve of his buttocks, the flex of his muscles as he pounded into her, over and over again. The feeling of his throbbing, filling her with heat. She could almost feel the light stubble on his face, smell his aftershave, the sweat of a day's hard work. The way he gently nuzzled her after they kissed, like he didn't want to let go. Faster now, frantically chasing that prize. She would stop him, shortly before he climaxed, take control and leave him begging for mercy. Then she would turn around and have him take her from behind, coaxing him like a dog, to his end.

She cried out, turning to the pillow to stifle the sound, smothering her own breasts with her free hand, imagining that he would be angry with her for leading him on, making him do things to her, making him take her by the neck and choke the life out of her over and over and over again -

It was over.

* * *

Michael knocked on Charles's door.

_"Just a moment,"_ came the muffled voice from inside.

"Mr Magnussen," he said, close to the door, "you asked for a report."

"Yes." Charles had opened the door, just a crack.

Michael caught a glimpse of the Filipino girl, passed out on the bed. "You were right," he said, "about everything."


End file.
